Read Matthew 25:31-46 https://biblia.com/bible/Matthew25.31-46#
Lent is particularly a season of the Christian year
that makes me glad I’m in a church that uses the Christian year. You might say, “Really?” I really
am glad to have a season that forces me to reflect in depth at what sin
have I let take hold of me. Of all the
sins that known as deadly, pride is probably the death trap that we can slip
into very easily without realizing it.
How do we know we’ve gotten there?
Whenever our religious life is making us feel that we are good, or above
all, better than somebody else then we’ve let Pride enter. Our real test
is can we forget about ourselves?
Matt. 25.37 says,
“then the righteous will answer him…” Has our self-righteousness blinded us? The opposite of pride is humility. The first step toward humility is realizing
you are prideful. Righteousness is only
through God’s grace and not of our own doing.
C.S. Lewis, in The
Joyful Christian, said “the essential vice, the utmost evil, is
Pride….Pride leads us to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of
mind.”
I don’t know about you, but I can easily think that I
have gotten everything right. I begin to
measure everyone else by my standards.
As you search your heart this Lenten season, ask
yourself what sin is it that you struggle with most. And dwell on the Psalmist’s word in Psalm
143:1-2
… hear my prayer, O Lord, give ear to my supplications
in your faithfulness; answer me in your righteousness. Do not enter into judgment with your servant,
for no one living is righteous before you.
