Humility in Prayer
Pride is idolatry of self. Spurgeon called it the “worst malformation of all the monstrous things in creation; it hath nothing lovely in it, nothing in proportion, but everything in disorder. It is altogether the very reverse of the creatures which God hath made, which are pure and holy. Pride, the first-born son of hell, is indeed like its parent, all unclean and vile, and in it there is neither form, fashion, nor comeliness.”
Humility, on the other hand, is of all graces most to be treasured and embraced. It ought to be lived in our communication, our dress, our thoughts, our doctrine, and in our prayer.
A child of God would never assert that he could do ought to merit righteousness, perhaps never think it; but the ongoing inability every Christian has in being continually and entirely heart-broken by God’s glorious grace to him or her is evidence enough of the pride still remaining within the heart.
Pride is a brainlessly ignorant thing, an entirely dishonest thing, a malignantly selfish thing, but above all, it is a most deceitfully adaptive thing.
Pride sometimes takes its shape in doctrine; it teaches the religion of man’s-sufficiency; it tells us what man can do, and will not submit itself to the scriptural teaching that we are by nature utterly lost, fallen, debased, and ruined creatures, as we are.
Other times, pride takes the form of prayer, petition, praise, even repentance, but all tainted with the stigma of self-righteousness. Men will “thank God” that they are not like other men, thinking themselves humble, never knowing that the deceitfulness of pride prompts them to pray. Continue reading