No Room for Pride in a Heart for God

The pride of your heart has deceived you. (Obadiah 1:3)

The words of the prophet Obadiah to Edom serve as a warning to everyone who does not want to be deceived by the great deceiver, whose name is “pride of heart.” Pride of heart blinds a person, preventing them from seeing their own sins. It pushes a person to trust in their own wisdom, strength, and talents. Those who rely on these will inevitably be disappointed.

Pride of heart is a deceiver. It can even hide in the heart so subtly that you do not notice its presence. While hidden, it carries out its dark deeds and invites its “relatives” to dwell with it: envy, anger, unforgiveness, gossip, the spirit of competition, selfishness, and others. Pride has a constant follower—destruction. “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18)

When pride is hidden, it becomes even more dangerous because you cannot see it to fight against it. The deception of pride is particularly dangerous when it wears the mask of humility, making it unrecognizable.

We must examine our hearts through the Word of God to uncover hidden pride, unmask this disguised deceiver, and destroy it. Since there will never come a day when I can confidently say that I have fully defeated pride, I must fight against it daily.

Lord, cast out this deceiver and its relatives—its entire family—from my heart. Place the guard of Your Word over my heart, for pride has no place in the heart where You are the rightful Owner.

From my diary,

December 18, 2024