During this year’s football season, I was astonished at the striking resemblance in play between Walter Payton and Adrian Peterson, running back for the Minnesota Vikings. Recently, I caught a few highlights on ESPN as the sports media made comparisons between the two of them. One clip showed Payton, a.k.a. “Sweetness” running the ball with an oncoming defender approaching him. Running full speed, Walter Payton would almost came to a standstill, juked to the left, rotated his hips, then juked to the right and headed for the sidelines. After evasively avoiding his opponent, it would appear that he was headed for a touchdown until an eager, aggressive and winded cornerback or safety caught up to him, attempting to thrust Payton out of bounds. However, unbeknownst to him, he would experience a HARD stiff arm to the helmet from Payton that would appear to have broken his neck. Once the defender realized that his chances of tackling him was over, Payton held the ball out to the side and high stepped freely on his toes into the end zone.
Every time I witnessed a Payton stiff arm, I only grimaced at what it would have felt like. Personally, I have received stiff arms not by Walter Payton but by Jesus Christ. I’ll never experience a Payton stiff arm but over my lifetime I have experienced distance from God. How so? The Bible says in James 4:6, “But He (Jesus) gives more grace. Therefore it says, God opposes (stiff arms) the proud but gives grace to the humble.” There have been times in my life when I have lived prideful and independent of God in order to please myself. I see pride in my life and guess what? God sees pride in your life. As a matter of fact, God sees it and hates it (Proverbs 6:17; Psalm 101:5). To be biblically honest, pride disgusts God. Why? Because pride is at the root of all sin and God hates sin.
But listen to some great news, in spite of our pride, God loves us passionately but hates when we take the initiative to exalt ourselves as god instead of finding our sufficiency in Him. Charles Bridges (Theologian) says, “Pride lifts up one’s heart against God and ‘contends for supremacy’ with Him.” Jonathan Edwards (18th Century theologian) calls pride “the worst viper that is in the heart” and “the greatest disturber of the soul’s peace and sweet communion with Christ. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God thus depriving God of what He is only worthy to receive.”
When do we see pride in our lives? We see pride in our lives when we arrogantly think that our success has everything to do with us, deliberately seek the applause of men, live like we have life figured out, and resist help from others because we proudly feel that “I” can do it better than everyone else, etc. Think about your life right now, “How does pride show up in your life?” Let me warn you as men, this is OUR “kryptonite” and our downfall (Proverbs 16:8, 29:23). The Bible teaches us that pride always precedes destruction and an arrogant spirit before a fall.
So what can we do? Should we all walk around sheepishly, with no sense of worth, speaking a little above a whisper to show everyone around us that we aren’t prideful? Not at all! The answer for our prideful hearts is in Scripture. In James 4:6, James says, “that God gives grace to the humble.” In other words, God stiff arms the proud but GIVES His grace (undeserved kindness) to those that humble themselves. You may ask, "How do we humble ourselves?" Repent often, turning our focus from ourselves “as the almighty great one” to Jesus Christ, our greatest picture of “true greatness.”
Listen to me, when the world presses on you to be “great in your own eyes” or you convince yourself that you need to be “the man” in order for the people around you to be impressed with you, repent often, recognizing that you are nothing apart from the goodness and grace of God. You see, Jesus, although God, humbled himself, came to the earth as a lowly human servant, lived a sinless life and died on a cursed cross so that we could be forgiven for our sins and not have to experience the wrath of God (Philippians 2:5-11). We are called to follow Jesus (God), who humbled himself being made low but yet was exalted by the Father (God).
Brothers, I’m in the journey with you! Let’s follow hard after Jesus, allowing Him to show us our pride that wanes deep in our hearts as well as the grace that He is given as well. My prayer for you over the next couple weeks is that you will come to grips with your pride and realize your desperate need for Jesus Christ. We’ll engage around this topic for the next few weeks. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
In the meantime be praying, “Lord, help me live each day completely dependent and trusting in you for everything I need and not myself.” Praying for you!
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