We live in a society that encourages pride, greed and lust. There are multi billion dollar industries that do little more than feed all three in the name of “self improvement” or “self help”. Should Christians exalt themselves? Is self exaltation ever warranted in the Bible? The short Biblical answer is no and no. We are to be humble, allowing God to work in us and through us. He will exalt you in his own timing and ways.
That really flies in the face of a culture that’s been taught to get up every morning look at ourselves in the mirror and recite affirmations about how amazing, beautiful and special we are. Pride is a wicked tool of the enemy, and we live in a society that breeds it, nourishes it, and rewards it. Pride cuts you off from God, quickly.
Self idolatry is very real. We stand in front of our altar every morning, fussing over our temple. What is your temple a temple of? Is there a humble heart within its inner chambers that seeks to glorify and exalt God, or is there a prideful heart seeking to be exalted and worshipped by other people? We are taught that having others envy us is a “good thing” – that is so wicked. Why would you want others to stumble in jealousy or envy on account of you? The world calls this success- to instill covetousness in others is somehow something to aspire to.
If you get a moment today look around at how pride is packaged into everything we do, hear, or see. Secular television glorifies pride and vanity. It also sells you the idea you need to look or act a certain way and it often perpetuates a sexualized version of humanity. Social media encourages prideful behavior and bases your “worth” on number of followers, likes, and comments. Secular music, does the same, it promotes the illusion that the more popular and rich you are the more people envy you. Secular music is extremely prideful and full of vanity and self exaltation.
Desire to have a humble heart to glorify only God. The only one to exalt is God, not ourselves. A humble heart is fertile ground for the Spirit to work in. Your heart should reflect the heart of Christ. The more humble your heart grows, the more love grows in you. The more love that grows in you the more you walk as Jesus Christ.
Remember Jesus picked fishermen and tax collectors not princes or kings to be his disciples…
“And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself shall be exalted.” – Matthew 23:12 KJV
“But he giveth more grace. Wherefore he saith, God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” – James 4:6 KJV
“Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time:” – 1 Peter 5:6 KJV
Exalt only God.
“O magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt his name together.” – Psalms 34:3 KJV
“Exalt ye the Lord our God, and worship at his footstool; for he is holy.” – Psalms 99:5 KJV
“O Lord, thou art my God; I will exalt thee, I will praise thy name; for thou hast done wonderful things; thy counsels of old are faithfulness and truth.” – Isaiah 25:1 KJV
“Exalt the Lord our God, and worship at his holy hill; for the Lord our God is holy.” – Psalms 99:9 KJV
Healthy Mind Ministry 
We could earn a large fortune if we were to invent an ego mirror. The mirror would come with a button that you played early in the morning that said how wonderful, great that we are playing the Eye of the Tiger music in the background. The mirror would distort our face to make us look ‘perfect’. Tha’s about how our society is today.
There are even recordings that you play that repeat over and over again, how wonderful, beautiful, smart, special you are. It reminds me of the cherubs that worship around God saying holy holy is the Lord…this world is a sick perverted reflection of what is holy and true.
Literally multi-billion dollar industry devoted to inflating our egos to the size of Mount Everest. I lost some subscribers last time I wrote on this topic because it is so counter culture to say we are not to think too highly of ourselves.
If you lost people over that, sorry, but they weren’t worth having. Yes, even many of the MEGA church specialize in nothing but preaching how God should REWARD them. All of this is sickening to me.
It’s sad because pride separates us from God. It’s the devils oldest weapon, and self idolatry is very real.
Such a great blog post, Tamara. This blog post peaked my interest because I did a similar blog post and wanted to see what you thought on the subjects of Pride and Humility.
I like when you said, “Pride is a wicked tool of the enemy, and we live in a society that breeds it, nourishes it, and rewards it. Pride cuts you off from God, quickly.”
Even as Christians, we still fall prey to the temptation of pride because we live in a culture that glorifies ourselves. However, as Christians, we should continue to humble ourselves before God because He is the only one that knows us better than we know ourselves. If we have a prideful heart, we will simply shut God out of our lives because we feel that we have everything.
Thank you for blogging on a topic that not many people talk about. If it’s not too much to ask; could you check out my blog posts on Humility and Pride?
I checked them both out. Great posts! I left a couple of comments too. You are a gifted writer. If anyone sees this comment check out Gods Warriors blog – Good Stuff 👍✝️
Thank you so much for the compliment Tamara. I pray that you gain a better and biblical perspective on situations that happen in your life.
Self idolatry. Had never heard of that. Awesome for sure. I many have to use that sometime
It’s the most common form of idolatry- self worship, adoration, and service. Many people spend every waking hour devoted to the great and mighty I-dol of self.
My pastor used the expression once to refer to such a person, “This is my beloved self in who I am well pleased.” LOL
😂😂😂😂😂 I like your Pastor, and I don’t even know him. That’s funny….cause it’s true.
Ego is our anesthesia to blind us and numb us to the Holy Spirit’s conviction. Amen!
Amen to that. I always thought of it like an egg – that in order to be truly born again we have to break out of. Because we create our ego to protect us really from the world…it doesn’t even really exist…yet we spend our lives constantly protecting it.
Yes!!!!
Great post. I’m a member of a Christian YouTube group and it’s astonishing how intently focused on subscriber-count many people are. People get so excited to announce they have hit the 100 or 1000 follower mark. Maybe it’s harmless, but maybe it’s unhealthy.
I have to admit I do want to grow my blog following, but I think what motivates me is that I feel I offer valuable content that can help people on their spiritual journeys. I don’t think it’s pride, but I definitely do want people to enjoy and relate to what I write. I know that ultimately my relationship with God is the most important thing, and it’s important not to get too attached to anything worldly.
God bless and have a wonderful day. Steven 🙏🏻
Amen Steven and I agree. When we get too attached to anything worldly, we shut out God and what He says about our lives and let our pride essentially give us validation.
We shouldn’t be so prideful that we think we are “better” than someone else because in truth, we are all imperfect people living in an imperfect and fallen world.
Agreed 100%
I think we are forced into believing that follower count equals relevance or importance. Nope. Keep writing and not worry, allow God to give you the increase as he wills and be thankful. ❤️
This is convicting. I spent a lot of years exalting myself in the hope people would think highly of me and, I have to admit, it was as exhausting as it was unfulfilling.
Only when I humbled myself before God and men did I achieve peace.
It’s bred into us, and fostered with great enthusiasm amongst our fellow human beings. Don’t beat yourself up over it, God has forgiven you and remembers it no more…why should you? We live and learn. Gods grace is sufficient and beautiful ❤️