What Is Spiritual Arrogance

Spiritual arrogance, strangely enough, is also the father of permissiveness. It is fashionable nowadays to brag about one's ability to endure sin. People take pride in how they accept and participate in things that the Bible forbids. Corinth's church shared the same mindset. When a couple in the church was sexually immoral, the congregation was proud of their capacity to tolerate it instead of mourning it (1 Cor. 5:2).

False teaching is frequently delivered by the pompous voice of sin tolerance (2 Pet. 2:18-19). “They say you can't do this, and they say you can't do that,” the rebel exclaims. “I declare liberation!” It has a pleasant melody, yet it binds the listener to the corruption of spiritual hubris.

Give people permission to point out pride in your life.

The intellect is deceived by pride. It blinds you and makes you believe that everything is fine; nevertheless, while your pride is unclear to you, it is painfully obvious to those around you. Allow them to point out your pride without fear of eliciting your wrath.

Focus more on God than you do on yourself

When we are confronted with our pride, our initial reaction may be contemplation. The issue with this is that it keeps you focused on yourself, which feeds your pride. Rather than becoming introspective, spend time reading Scripture. Consider what Christ has accomplished for you.

Pray

Prayer is a humble attitude toward God. Answer pride with prayer when it comes knocking at your door. Request that He humble you. Ask Him to search your heart and show where you've allowed pride to take control, and ask Him to use His power to help you break free from pride's grip on your life.

Remember

Remember when God offers you a lesson in humility! A lesson that is remembered does not need to be retaught. Take those teachings and use them on a regular basis in your life.

Benjamin Franklin never forgot what he learned from Mather about humility. “I often think of it when I see pride humiliated, and tragedies brought upon individuals by their lifting their heads too high,” Franklin subsequently wrote to Mather's son.

What the Bible says about the spirit of pride?

11:2 (Proverbs) “When pride enters, it brings shame, but humility brings insight.” 16:18 in Proverbs “A haughty heart precedes a fall, and pride precedes ruin.” God isn't trying to harm your pride; he's trying to kill it.

What does the Bible say about being stubborn?

How can you assist someone who refuses to accept aid and refuses to realize they have a problem? This is how my cousin is. His life is falling apart due to his inability to get along with others, but he refuses to acknowledge it. What options do I have? R.H., R.H., R.H., R.H.

Have you ever considered how obstinate we can be – and how much it affects us? Stubbornness leads us to do things we shouldn't do and isolates us from others (including those who wish to help us) because we insist on doing things our way and refuse to admit we're wrong.

However, stubbornness separates us from God by refusing to seek His will or listen to His Word. Rather, we insist on pursuing our own way, no matter what the repercussions are. I'm reminded of the people in Jeremiah's day who steadfastly refused to listen to his warnings, telling him, “It's no use.” We'll stick to our own schemes; everyone of us will follow his bad heart's obstinacy” (Jeremiah 18:12).

What is the Hebrew word for arrogance?

is effectively accused of arrogant behavior. Traditional interpretations of this text suggest that he is seized and motivated by envy, and that he is the one who is – behaving arrogantly (mee-nah-SEH), rather than.

How do you overcome pride and arrogance?

For a reason, pride is one of the seven deadly sins. It obstructs our ability to learn, makes us egotistical, and jeopardizes our responsibilities as leaders and business owners. However, putting pride aside might assist us in becoming better and more successful in our undertakings.

Every day, there are lessons to be learnt from people you wouldn't expect, whether it's from an intern, an in-law, or a child. “Always walk through life as though you have something fresh to learn, and you will,” remarked Vernon Howard.

The following six suggestions will assist you in putting your pride aside so that you can achieve professional success.

Be Aware

While pride demonstrates that you value yourself and your achievements, and it motivates you to go toward what you deserve, it may be dangerous in huge doses.

Recognize when you're being overly proud as the first step in controlling your pride. Be self-critical, but not too harsh on yourself. You'll be able to better control your pride if you start listening to your thoughts and thinking about others.

Don't Take Yourself Too Seriously

According to Psychology Today, pride stems from a sense of disgrace or shame. You can avoid developing a mental and psychological barrier that will stifle your growth if you're willing to laugh at yourself, admit that you don't know everything, and disregard prideful thoughts when they enter your mind.

While confidence, drive, and respect are important leadership traits, having too much pride will prevent you from earning them or others' admiration.

Ask the Right Questions

Change Your Questions, Change Your Life is an enlightening book that shows how asking learning questions rather than judgmental questions can help you and people around you thrive.

What is the difference between these two queries, though? How do you tell if you're asking the correct people? Learning and judgment charts are highlighted in the book, with the former leading to a beneficial outcome and the latter to “the judger pit.”

“What happened?” is a good question to ask to open the path to resolution and growth. instead of “Why am I such a failure?” or “What do I want?” “Why are they so stupid?” or “Why are they so stupid?”

Be Open-Minded

“Your way or the highway” can be viewed as prideful mentality. You'll already be bettering yourself and your teammates by remaining open-minded.

Take a deep breath and force yourself to focus on their point of view if you find yourself shutting someone down before they've even finished a phrase. Ask a clarifying inquiry if you don't agree or comprehend something. Being open-minded will improve team morale and lead to better ideas and outcomes.

Listen, Don't Talk

Being a know-it-all has never been a flattering label. It's impossible to know everything, and individuals who act as if they do are frequently hated.

“One of the most honest kinds of respect is truly listening to what another has to say,” said Brant H. McGill.

Listening is the polar opposite of pride since it allows someone else to express themselves or their thoughts while putting your pride aside. Listen more than you speak and see how many new things you can pick up in the process.

Put Your Business First

Pride can be detrimental to a company's bottom line. Put your company goals on a pedestal if you're suffering with pride, ego, and other unpopular human tendencies.

When you notice yourself becoming obstinate, argumentative, or defensive (all signs of pride), ask yourself one question: “Will this help me improve my work, advance in the company, or improve the bottom line?” If you get a no or even a delayed yes, you know you have pride to deal with and let go of.

Cut yourself some slack as you seek to become a more humble leader, employee, and business owner. It's never simple to make a positive change, but once you do, you'll be shocked at the doors that open and who's eager to teach you something new.

What triggers pride?

When we achieve a goal, such as obtaining a promotion or purchasing a new car, there's nothing wrong with feeling satisfied. We set ourselves up for suffering if we let these things to determine who we are. Suffering is caused by clinging too closely to things that will surely fade away, according to Buddhist psychology.

Validating, affirming, and appreciating ourselves as we are leads to a more authentic and solid sense of self-worth. Self-worth is a result of living with dignity, which exists independently of any achievements. Accomplishments are fleeting and can become a trap. We become hooked to external sources of fulfillment if we devote too much of our attention to achieving bigger and better things in order to feel happy.

Dignity, on the other hand, can exist within us regardless of our accomplishments or failures. We are not required to prove anything to anyone, including ourselves. If a business fails, it does not imply that we are failures. If an attempt to convey our sentiments to our spouse fails, we may be disappointed, but we can take comfort in knowing that we tried our hardest. We can feel the honor of reaching out to reconnect or mend a relationship that has been harmed. Regardless matter the outcome, we can feel the dignity of living a life of integrity.

Perhaps there's a reason why pride is regarded as one of the seven deadly sins. We've all been turned off by those who exaggerate their own worth. They may talk excessively about themselves and exhibit little interest in others. They exude an attitude that makes others feel scrutinized, and they build themselves up and come out as snobby.

Such arrogance and overconfidence push us away. Instead of treating us as equals, they treat us with an arrogant superiority that makes us feel insignificant. They have an uncanny ability to make us feel the humiliation that they refuse to acknowledge in themselves.

Pride is frequently fueled by feelings of inadequacy and shame. We have such low self-esteem that we compensate by feeling superior. We look for flaws in others in order to hide our own. We enjoy criticizing others as a shield against admitting our own flaws.

What negative things can come from pride?

Do you associate the term pride with a positive or bad connotation? There are numerous sorts of pride that are beneficial. “Take pride in our job” is a nice thing to do. When someone says to us, “I'm proud of you,” we like it. Almost everyone wants to live in a community where people take pride in their homes. All of these gestures convey a positive sense of pride: dignity, respect, and honor, qualities that we can all appreciate.

However, pride isn't necessarily a good thing. Pride can also refer to arrogance, conceit, or superiority. This type of pride is damaging since it is based on self-centeredness.

Relationships are especially vulnerable to selfish pride. That's because the polar opposite of loving others is being self-centered, not hating them. C.S. Lewis, a famous writer and apologist, has this to say about pride:

The argument is that each person's pride competes with the pride of everyone else. I'm irritated with someone else making the big noise at the party because I wanted to be the big noise at the party…. What you want to understand is that pride is essentially competitive, that it is competitive by nature, whereas the other vices are competitive simply by chance.

Pride derives no joy from possessing something; rather, it derives pleasure from possessing more of it than the next man. We claim that people are proud of being wealthier, smarter, or more attractive than others. There would be nothing to be proud of if everyone became equally wealthy, intelligent, or attractive. It's the satisfaction of being better than the rest that makes you proud.

So, how do we address the issue of pride? I believe there are a number of steps we can take to combat our proclivity for self-centeredness.

1. Acknowledge and Accept Your Pride.

“If somebody would wish to gain humility, I can, I believe, give him the first step,” C.S. Lewis stated of admitting pride. The first step is to acknowledge one's pride. And it's a significant step. Nothing, at the very least, can be done before it. You are quite conceited indeed if you believe you are not conceited.” You won't be able to address a problem that you aren't aware of.

2. Show Your Appreciation.

“A proud man is rarely a thankful man,” Henry Ward Beecher said, “for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.” Saying “thank you” has a way of drawing our attention away from ourselves and back to the blessings we've received and the people who have blessed us.

3. Put Servanthood into Action.

A truly great person is always willing to be small. However, pride opposes servanthood since a proud person expects to be served. Serving others forces us to focus on their needs rather than our own, reminding us that we are a part of something larger than ourselves.

4. Make a fool of yourself.

“Blessed are they who laugh at themselves, for they shall never cease to be entertained,” says an old proverb. You'll discover humor everywhere once you start looking for it in your own behavior and situation. People who are conceited take themselves far too seriously. You begin to see how ludicrous we can all be when you laugh at yourself.

If your pride motivates you to strive for perfection, do your best, and rejoice in the accomplishments of others, you're on your way to being a better leader. However, if it contains even a smidgeon of competition or self-promotion, it will almost certainly have a negative impact on your relationships. That can be detrimental to both your personal life and your leadership abilities. If that's the case, do what I try to do: focus on others while following the advice above.

How do you humble yourself?

For many of us, humility is one of the most difficult virtues to cultivate since it requires acknowledging that you are not always correct and that you do not possess all of the answers.

When you're at the bottom of the tree, as it were: fresh in a job or very junior, it's quite easy to be humble. The more senior you become, though, the more others will look to you for answers, and the more you will believe that you can assist them.

If you're not careful, you can end up in senior positions, just when you need humility the most, feeling that you're more or less infallible.

You might want to try one or more of the following actions to try to promote humility:

One of the most important characteristics of humility is the ability to esteem others and allow them to be heard. Spending time listening to others and eliciting their sentiments and values, allowing them to express themselves, is a really effective method to begin to comprehend this.

It's vital to remember that you're not trying to fix their problems or provide solutions; instead, you're simply listening and responding to them as a fellow human being.

Accepting what is rather than evaluating and commenting on it is an important aspect of mindfulness. Accepting yourself with all of your flaws rather than criticizing yourself for your weaknesses is a crucial aspect of humility. That isn't to say you shouldn't attempt to improve, but you should do so in a constructive way rather than berating yourself for your flaws.

More on this, including some helpful techniques, can be found on our Mindfulness page.

To put it another way, ‘count your blessings' and be grateful for them. It's easy to become caught up in a negative cycle of wanting more, whether it's from within or without. Taking the time to reflect on what you have to be grateful for might help you create a more humble and happy mindset.

Many of us will ruefully admit that there is a sense of pride in being able to fix our own difficulties. As a result, humility is defined as the ability to recognize when we require assistance and to ask for it correctly. You might find our page on Transactional Analysis useful in figuring out how to ask for aid without sacrificing your sense of equality.

Although this is maybe especially crucial for leaders, we can all benefit from hearing what others have to say about us. Take the time to solicit comments from others, anonymously if necessary, and make it apparent that you value their input. Openly listen to the feedback and then express gratitude.

Pride and arrogance are terrible phrases that encompass smugness, snobbery, and conceit. It can be difficult to avoid feeling conceited, vain, or even snobbish at times. It's common to feel that way, for example, when we've done something wonderful and everyone is complimenting us. We don't call these sentiments by their names, though, because the terms themselves have bad implications.

Examine your feelings in light of the words: ask yourself, “Was that snobbish?” or “Was I being a little vain then?” and be honest about your answers. Recognizing and recognizing these emotions for what they are is an important step toward humility.