Pastor Chris Seay continued our recent series exploring scripture and the unique insight of theologian C.S. Lewis, entering into the story of Nebuchadnezzar and offering us an invitation to address the places of pride and entitlement in our hearts. In this Lenten season, will we submit these places to God in the hope of transformation?
Text
Proverbs 16:18
Jeremiah 51:34
Daniel 4:34-37
Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, contentment, or even common sense.
-CS Lewis
As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down you cannot see something that is above you.
-CS Lewis
According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…
… it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began.
-CS Lewis
Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition is gone, pride is gone.
― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
Forget your pride (what have you to be proud of?) and forget your anger (who has done you wrong?) and accept the mercy of these good kings.
― C.S. Lewis, The Horse and His Boy
Although he didn't care much about any subject for its own sake, he cared a great deal about marks (grades or comparisons).
― C.S. Lewis, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader
Prayer of Peace
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
where there is sadness, joy.
O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek
to be consoled as to console,
to be understood as to understand,
to be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen.
Reflection
Part of battling the pride in our hearts is about investing our attention in others. How can you seek to learn more about those in your neighborhood or workplace by asking good questions?
Where do you feel your heart drawn to places of competition, comparison, or resentment? Commit time in prayer over them.
How, and with whom, can you be generous this week? Look for an opportunity. It won't be hard to find.
Worship Set
Faith's Review And Expectation
How Great Thou Art
10,000 Reasons (Bless The Lord)
God With Us
Come And Listen
I Wait