“Pride” is a misguided endeavor that prioritizes physical acceptance and inclusion when spiritual inclusion and acceptance are the epitome of true triumph. Furthermore, the shortsightedness of physical pride contradicts the logic of the eternal certainty that is only garnered through a spiritual relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Mankind was created in the image of God, having body, soul and a spirit that is intended to live forever. The spiritual death that was inflicted upon humanity in the Garden of Eden drastically altered our perspective resulting in a physical centric and materially focused being. This prideful deception came at the hands of the originator of pride, Lucifer himself (Isaiah 14:12-15).
The resulting distortion of our attitude has led people to search for material answers to spiritual problems and to the outright denial of spirituality altogether. Therefore, the truth that our identity is not connected to our bodies but rather to our spirit has become a mystery to secular society. And the fact that our body doesn’t care if we go to hell because its not going with us, has been lost for generations.
Vanity leads to the perversion of mankind’s judgement and society’s self glorification stands in direct opposition to God and the humility of Christ. A prideful heart leads to prideful actions and consequently sin, as depicted by Solomon in Proverbs 21:4. “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin!”
A whole month of pride parades, marches of darkness and events promoting acceptance and inclusion based upon sexual orientation, has gone overboard to the extreme of holding society hostage to an agenda that has morphed into prideful depravity. The hubris of the pride movement has created its own reality and values that are not shared by the rest of the population and specifically the Christian church.
TODAY’S NACISSISTIC CULTURE
Today’s narcissistic culture doesn’t want to be judged for its beliefs. The pride that is proclaimed in parades, endorsed by society and taught in elementary schools – condones pornography, the sexualization of little girls, gender dysphoria, the degradation of the traditional family and ultimately the pernicious erosion of truth. Everything is packaged as one big blue pill that society is being coerced into swallowing in the name of acceptance, tolerance and inclusion.
Isaiah 5:20 warns, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” The pride of mankind has done this very thing. Rather than searching for what pleases God, society has chosen to please itself. Isaiah 66:2b tells us what pleases God. “This is the one I esteem: he who is humble and contrite in spirit.”
Our godless society overlooks the morality surrounding sexuality in scripture in an effort to diminish the immorality of our sexual culture that commercializes sex through entertainment, advertising, erotic art and literature, etc. Paul wrote, “Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.” (Romans 1:24). A godless society that has rejected God also rejects His word.
Paul then reveals, “Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.” (Romans 1:26-27). The antagonism between the terms natural vs unnatural illustrates God’s intent vs man’s disregard for that intent.
Our culture today has gradually devolved to possess the very same extreme and perverse principles that were evident in the Roman Empire. Over time, cultural taboos have become normalized and are now part of mainstream values. In the words of Joni Eareckson Tada, “Gradually, the unthinkable becomes tolerable, then acceptable, then legal, then praised.”
Continued sin sears our consciences and hardens our hearts, and we deceive ourselves into believing that our depravity is not depravity at all, but an expression of our virtue. We succumb to the deception of relativism and are drawn in by false teachers that advocate our disrespect for God in an attempt to justify our desire to willfully sin (2 Timothy 3:1-5; 4:2).
HUMILITY
The Bible reveals God’s attitude regarding humility in His people and His disdain of pride. Psalm 149:4 says, “For the Lord takes delight in His people; He crowns the humble with salvation.” James 4:6 tells us, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” Humility is a virtue that God holds in high esteem and will reward.
Luke 14:11 teaches, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” 1 Peter 5:6 reads, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time.” And in James 4:10 we are told, “Humble yourselves before the Lord, and He will lift you up.”
Jesus declared in Matthew 11:28-29, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” Christ is the template from which His followers are to pattern themselves after.
The apostle Paul advises, “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:4-8).
SET APART FROM THE WORLD
Christians are to be set apart from the world and sanctified through Christ. In 1 John 2:15-16, the disciple writes, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For everything in the world – the cravings of sinful man, the lust of his eyes and the boasting of what he has and does – comes not from the Father but from the world.”
James elaborates candidly in James 4:4, “You adulterous people, don’t you know that friendship with the world is hatred towards God? Anyone who chooses to be a friend of the world becomes an enemy of God.” Worldly values and worldly passions are blind to the holiness of God and stem from the god of this age, who is Satan (2 Corinthians 4:4).
In Ephesians 2:1-5, Paul proclaims, “As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our sinful nature and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature objects of wrath. But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions – it is by grace you have been saved.”
While popular culture insists in self determination through sexual identity, the irrationality of this perspective cannot be overstated. The preoccupation with gender identity undermines the truth that humans are made in the likeness of God. Paul informs us in Romans 3:12, All have turned away, they have together become worthless;”. Civilization has been led astray through prideful deception.
Celebrating “Pride” is precisely the opposite expression of acceptance and inclusion that humanity was designed to venerate. This desire to glorify physical aspirations contravenes Christ’s teachings (Matthew 16:24), and the truth that we are spiritual beings. True identity and value are not determined by sexual orientation, but rather by believing in Jesus Christ and receiving the right to become children of God (John 1:12).
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