Before You Fall
You can do it yourself. You can be a good Christian, parent, teacher, student, or anything else all by yourself. You obviously live every day, and you've made it this far. Other people make it through their lives without relying on God. Why can't you? It's just that you are so strong that you don't need help anymore. You got this.
Reading that probably made you furious, and you would be right. But subconsciously, we often feel that we can live independently of God without realizing it. Whether purposeful or accidental, we can live with this frame of mind.
Pride is a dangerous sin; it is the sin that brought Lucifer to his now wretched state. We must always be wary of pride in our lives; it can destroy us. The Bible gives a repeated warning about pride. Jeremiah 9:23 says - Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:
When struggling with pride, there are a few things to remind yourself of:
First, God created you and the very energy you use to get out of bed. He is the sustainer of life, not yourself.
Second, if you are saved you have admitted that you could not save yourself. You acknowledged that you had no power over even yourself.
Third, after salvation, you still sin. You defy God every day with your willful actions despite His gift.
All of us have pride-eradicating facts about us that we need to remind ourselves of when we start thinking we can do it ourselves.
One question to address is, "why can other people live life without God, but you can't?". Something thing to consider is that you do not see everything about people. People take great pains to hide their faults and appear happy to other people so they will think well of them or envy them. Despite people's efforts we can all around us see broken people. They tried living a life void of God, and now they learned the hard way that that is impossible. Proverbs 16:18 says - “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall.” Only God can help us live our lives in a way that we will not become broken.
Pride in our lives will have disastrous effects on ourselves and others. With pride, any spiritual endeavor will be a waste. Our pride tells us that we can do it ourselves, but as one of my teachers once pointed out, Jesus told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit to come and then go out and preach. All efforts would be useless without the Holy Spirit's power. The same rule applies to us. Our efforts, no matter how good-intentioned they are, will come to nothing if we are doing them with our own strength.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. - Philippians 4:13
If we want to serve God, we must do it His way. We need to do it with humility and prayer, trusting God for everything. We will not fail when we are leaning on God. He will give us the strength we need if we let Him into our lives. Acknowledge that you need Him, and you will find that even though things may be hard, you will have the strength you need. Whether it be your secular job, ministry, children, or even your education, do it with God. Pride is the devil telling you that you can do things yourself because he wants you to fail. Instead of listening to someone who wants to destroy us, let's go through life with the one who died for us.
By humility and the fear of the LORD are riches, and honour, and life. - Proverbs 22:4
