The Pride Part

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Pride is a protean thing, a true shape shifter. Whenever a creature desires to believe in his own superiority, this is a desire that can be projected onto anything. When it comes to the erection of buildings and sanctuaries, we can take aesthetic pride in the beauty of what we have done, or economic pride in the efficiency of what we have done, or moralistic pride in the humility of what we have done, and so on down the line.

But the problem with pride is the pride part, not the accomplishment part.

God put us into the world to accomplish things, and we are to be grateful to Him when He enables us to do these things. But when we veer off into pride, we can take pride in having done what God gave us to do, or we can take pride in doing something else instead. The problem is the heart attitude, always.

When we have built something, the pride of man wants to look out over it all, like Nebuchadnezzar on the walls of Babylon, and somehow to take credit. This is the beginning of insanity—it might come suddenly, as it did with Nebuchadnezzar, or it might creep up slowly, as it has for many others.

We want two things therefore. We want God to prosper the work of our hands, and we want Him to keep reminding us that even our hands themselves are his handiwork. We have been saved by grace through faith, and not by works, to head off the boasting. At the same time, while thwarting every carnal boast, God has created us as His workmanship, His artifact, to do good works, which He prepared beforehand for us to do. So as we build let us remember that we are being built, and all of it by grace.

So let the stones cry out.

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