Two are better than one because a good return comes when two work together. If one of them falls, the other can help him up. But who will help the pitiful person who falls down alone? In the same way, if two lie down together, they can keep each other warm. But how will the one who sleeps alone stay warm against the night? And if one person is vulnerable to attack, two can drive the attacker away. As the saying goes, “A rope made of three strands is not quickly broken.”
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12 The Voice
Hierarchy Of A Home
The love of Jesus flows out of our vital-vertical relationship, in fact, it overflows, because He lavishes us with His Love in abundance, always more than we could ever need or want. Yes, God’s love overflows from you to your spouse and all over your children. The main problem with pride is that it damns up the flow of God’s love. The home has a hierarchy of God, marriage and children. If your marriage is constantly barraged by pride, then humility takes a back seat and arrogance steps up to drive the family and what a wild ride it will be. Our personal relationship with God is the life blood of our family, it nurtures the heart of our family with the sacrificial love of Jesus, and there is no other way to keep your family healthy and whole. Marriage is a triangle, Jesus, you and your spouse and your family is safely sheltered within. Jesus is the common denominator to every family and is the life sustenance to the soul of your family, by His Love that flows from heart to heart.
A proud heart precedes destruction, and before honor is humility. Proverbs 18:12 The Voice
Family Danger
Pride is a dangerous enticement of the enemy and we need to avoid it and guard against it at all costs, keeping it away from our family life. The heart life of our family depends upon our selfless, humble, loving heart attitudes. When pride gets bucked up, it short circuits’ relationships and unity is temporarily and vehemently interrupted. Pride disrupts the flow of God’s Love and without the harmony of holy alignment with God, where parents have given into pride and have let strife divide them, children fall into the same pattern of behavior and are taught by the evil principalities and shaped by pride.
Pride is as safely the sign of destruction as the change of mercury in the weather-glass is the sign of rain; and far more infallibly so than that. When men have ridden the high horse, destruction has always overtaken them. Author: Charles Spurgeon
Humility Is Necessary!
Humility is a necessary heart characteristic for the heart of a family to stay functional and full of healthy life. We see the greatest act of humility come out of the Savior of the World, as He humbly, with great meekness of spirit, takes all of our human frailty and the short comings of our sinful nature, and puts them on Himself, asking for forgiveness for our sins. He owns our sins, He forbears sorrowfully for them and suffers pridelessly and extremely selflessly for our sins. Jesus laid down His glory, rights, privileges, prerogatives and life, for our wrong doings, for retribution of our human condition, so we could have a happy ending, a happily ever after. Human pride was struck down and humility arose.
A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger. (Pr 15:1) What a valuable mine of practical wisdom is this Book of God! Let us ponder this valuable rule for self-discipline, family peace, and Church unity. Scripture often illustrates the different effects of the tongue. The soft answer is the water to quench – Grievous words are the oil to stir up, the fire. And this is alas! man’s natural propensity, to feed rather than to quench, the angry flame. We yield to irritation; retort upon our neighbor; have recourse to self-justification; insist upon the last word; say all that we could say; and think we “do well to be angry.” (Jonah 4:9.) Neither party gives up an atom of the will. Pride and passion on both sides strike together like two flints; and “behold! how great a matter a little fire kindleth!” (James 3:5.)Thus there is the self-pleasing sarcasm; as if we had rather lose a friend, than miss a clever stroke. All this the world excuses as a sensitive and lively temper. But the gospel sets before us our Savior’s example (1 Peter 2:23); imbues with his spirit; and imparts that blessed “charity, that is not easily provoked” (1 Cor. 13:5); and therefore is careful not to provoke a chafed or wounded spirit. If others begin, let us forbear from continuing the strife. `Patience is the true peace-maker’. Soft and healing words gain a double victory – over ourselves and our brother. Author: Charles Bridges
A Fearsome Enemy
When the heart of the family life is sent into disarray from selfish pride that has propped the door of our home open to the spirit of strife, dysfunction occurs. When dysfunction is not shut down, and pride stays bucked up, it causes ruts in the family, deep family furrows where bad habits are formed and these evil tendencies shadow the Light of God, reducing the flow of life sustenance which was meant to nurture the heart of the family with His love, kindness, compassion and joy. Without joy, there is no strength, without compassion, there is no courage, without love, there is fear and without kindness, there is debilitating stress. There are family rifts that occur because of pride that never get repaired. Pride is a fearsome enemy to family life.
Above all else, watch over your heart; diligently guard it because from a sincere and pure heart come the good and noble things of life. Do away with any talk that twists and distorts the truth; have nothing to do with any verbal trickery. Keep your head up, your eyes straight ahead, and your focus fixed on what is in front of you.
Proverbs 4:22-25 The Voice
Guard Your Family’s Heart
God’s light, love, truth, purpose, peace, joy, wisdom, it feeds the soul of our family. The one thing that damns up the flow of this is pride. We have to be so careful to keep it out of our spirit, because it affects the heart of family life. Out of the heart of the family, all family life flows. This is why Jesus was so adamant that we take God’s truth and guard our hearts diligently, for out of them flows the issues of our lives. This is why Jesus spoke these following truths, so we would have a pattern for our family living:
If you find any comfort from being in the Anointed, if His love brings you some encouragement, if you experience true companionship with the Spirit, if His tenderness and mercy fill your heart; then, brothers and sisters, here is one thing that would complete my joy—come together as one in mind and spirit and purpose, sharing in the same love. Don’t let selfishness and prideful agendas take over. Embrace true humility, and lift your heads to extend love to others. Get beyond yourselves and protecting your own interests; be sincere, and secure your neighbors’ interests first. In other words, adopt the mind-set of Jesus the Anointed. Live with His attitude in your hearts. Remember: Though He was in the form of God, He chose not to cling to equality with God; But He poured Himself out to fill a vessel brand new; a servant in form and a man indeed. The very likeness of humanity, He humbled Himself, obedient to death— a merciless death on the cross! So God raised Him up to the highest place and gave Him the name above all. So when His name is called, every knee will bow, in heaven, on earth, and below. And every tongue will confess “Jesus, the Anointed One, is Lord,” to the glory of God our Father! Philippians 2:2-11 The Voice
Pride Destroys Family Harmony
Pride is truly one of the worst destroyers of unity known to marriage and families. Pride has many evil tendencies, but the worst one is angry words that separates us, causing us to sit apart from each other, no longer heart to heart. Pride puts up walls between us. When unity is divided, it gives an open door for the enemy to come in with smugness and deepen the wedge between us by establishing our pride and erecting thick partitions of egotism that block us from being one in heart, one in soul, one in spirit in our family life. Pride terrorizes marriages and families and it ushers in strife which evokes nasty actions and leaves broken hearts in its pathway. The worst side effect of bucked up pride is the shutting off of communication, leaving behind the nagging drip of bitter silence.
“I think Paul is saying in Philippians 2 that we’re to imitate a willingness to relinquish our own glory and our own privileges and prerogatives. I think the context of Philippians 2 makes it very clear that what Jesus emptied himself of was not his deity, not his divine attributes, but his prerogatives—his glory and his privileges.” Excerpt From Book: Now – That’s a Good Question by author: R.C. Sproul
Selflessness Is A Treasure!
Pride has to be sat down, the right to be “right” has to be let go of, the will has to be bent in the direction of selflessness. It is only when we forget who was right or who was wrong, and dig deeper in humility, will the heart of our family unity begin to mend and the nurturing, healing stream of love will flow between us once again. A repentant heart is truly a treasure of selflessness. Being willing to give in and forgive, takes one, but always breaks through proud silence and brings forth the fruit of a family clinging together. New beginnings always start with humility and end with unconditional love mending the relational tear and strengthening the bonds of family unity.
Paul describes a community where every person considers the needs of others first and does nothing from selfishness; it pulls together rather than pulls apart, and it is a body that knows its purpose and lets nothing interfere with it. It is an extended spiritual family where others line up to become part of this sacred assembly and to make it their home because they feel encouragement and know they are truly loved. So Paul urges the Philippians to strive for this radical unity and fulfill his joy by having the mind of Jesus who humbled Himself, became a servant, and suffered the death of the cross. Jesus becomes the example of humility and service, leading to the kind of unity Paul imagines. The Voice Commentary Of Philippians 2
Arrogance Shuts Out Kindness!
Arrogance loves to slam the doors of our hearts shut to kindness. The communication of love, thoughtfulness, encouragement and inspiration is what daily nurtures the heart of our relationships in our families and pride cuts through these lines of caring and leaves behind a hurt, a deep slice in the heart of your family that can only begin to be mended when pride is squelched with three humble words: I Am Sorry! A repentant heart is a changed soul condition, it is pride trumped by personal humility.
“There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians ever imagine that they are guilty themselves….The essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites 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…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.” Author: C.S. Lewis
We Are Promised!
The ONE Who purposefully showed the deepest heartfelt and most sacrificial humility ever known to mankind, this ONE is our Bridegroom and we are blessed to be His Bride. We are promised a great future and hope, so keep the lines of communication open with Jesus, guard your soul from any form of pride and let your heart be nurtured by Your Bridegroom, Who has proven just how much HE believes in His eternal endgame for us as He sacrificed His life for us and for the glory of the Kingdom of God. We are to love as HE loved, sacrificially, selflessly and meekly. This is a tall order, a big challenge which has purposes in it that are even greater than the challenge of it! But we are up to the task at hand, we have all that we need as we stay in a constant, vital-vertical relationship with Jesus, Whose love is abundant, unconditional and forever! This is the kind of love we want to keep flowing in and out of our family life. I pray it is so. I pray we will have families Who are founded upon God’s Love.
Family Life was written by the author of The Bridegrooms Café, KimberlyMac. I come from a very large family and over the years we have “grown through” many hard things because of pride. It is my hope that your family never knows the hurt unquenched pride can bring, I pray you protect the heart of your family from pride and stay strong and unified in Christ. God bless you MUCH. Please share this with other families, let’s get this word out to them, so they too can be equipped by God to fight pride. Use your social media to do so with the button below. Please leave a comment to encourage others, share about your family, so others can avoid the trap of pride. Thank you!