Give Glory to God

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

(Romans 12:3)

Pride is a sin residing in all of us right down to the core. I admit I often times struggle with pride. I have to be on guard against it all the time. Whenever I have to speak publicly, people give me compliments on my ability to get my point across so effortlessly. As I’m thanking them for their kind words of encouragement, I’m also trying to quell any prideful thoughts I may have. I try to always look inward every day and see myself for what I am; a sinner in need of Jesus.
There are many people who have been or are, what we would call, “giants of the faith.” Men like the Apostles, Justin the Martyr, and St Augustine from the early church. Then we have people like D L Moody, R C Sprool, G K Chesterton, and Billy Graham who are more recent contributors to our understanding of Christ. As fallible humans, do you think they could have been prideful and thought pretty highly of themselves? It’s a normal human response to success to feel good about our accomplishments.

They were given a higher ability than others of their time, hence their ability to spread the gospel so effectively. They wouldn’t have been able to complete their undertakings if they had let pride go before them. Every one of those men was a lowly sinner. Every one of them, even though they were certainly special in many ways, still committed sins every day. They all realized that and had to fight to keep those feelings of pride at bay.

It's not just the work I do for God’s kingdom that I’m talking about here. If I accomplish great things in the business world, am I any better than the person who sweeps the floor? Absolutely not! No matter what success I might achieve, whether it be for Jesus or my profession, I have nothing to boast about. Not because the work I do is no good, but because it’s the Lord who gives me any ability I possess. I have no capability beyond what God gives me. I am no better or no worse than anyone else.

Father you are great and mighty, worthy of all our praise. You alone in the whole universe have the right to be prideful, but you are not. We are weak, Lord, and need to puff ourselves up by thinking we deserve praise when we’ve achieved some goal. Give us the discernment to realize when pride is invading our thoughts. Forgive us when our hearts become full of self-importance. When we’re hearing people tells us how good we are, remind us to give you the glory. No matter what we do, Lord, help us to always do our best with the talents and abilities you have given us. We all need the encouragement of our peers when we are in the midst of a difficult task but keep us from thinking our success makes us more significant than we are. No matter how important we think we are, we are still sinners in need of the cleansing blood of Jesus. No matter how much esteem is heaped upon us, we owe everything to you, Lord. It’s in your precious name, we pray. Amen!