Undoing Pride

Undoing Pride

Read: Luke 9:23-27

Then he said to them all: “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”

Luke 9:23

“When Christ calls a man, He bids him come and die.”

—Dietrich Bonhoeffer

IN WORD At the Fall, our first parents stepped out of a God-centered life and placed themselves at the center of their own lives. Every human being since, except one, has followed in their footsteps. We have all, at some point or another, said, “I will be my own Lord and follow my own authority.” It is pride, the foundation of all sin; and it is cosmic treason, punishable by death.

When we meditate on the Cross and realize that we should have been the ones on it, our lordship of ourselves is undone. No one can gaze upon that ugly scene—the brutality and the blood—knowing that it was the punishment for our treason, not His, and still maintain a sense of pride. No one can walk away determined to remain on the throne of his or her heart, having seen the result of such a catastrophic decision. No one can willfully mishandle such mercy. Or can we?

Yes, the vestiges of our prideful treason remain, even after we have viewed the Cross and accepted the sacrificial Lamb as our own payment for sin. We trample upon the mercy of God, perhaps out of ignorance or habit, struggling with our self-will all the while. We don’t want to, not if we’ve truly seen the Cross. But we do. We can all identify with Paul in Romans 7, doing the things we do not want to do, and not doing the things we want to do.

IN DEED This is why Jesus tells His disciples: “Take up your cross daily.” Not once at our first glimpse of Calvary. Not occasionally when we feel a particular need to repent. Daily. If we live by pride daily, as sons and daughters of Adam and Eve inevitably do, we must undo pride daily. And nothing undoes pride but the Cross. It reminds us that our remedy is not simply to try and do better, but to die to ourselves and be resurrected with Christ. It was the ultimate expression of God-centeredness, and it is our model for living for Him.