Humility kills pride. So “humble yourself before the Lord,” as James writes (Jas 4:10). Kill your pride before it kills the things you love. Subdue it before it gets you into the kind of trouble that may even kill you. Conquer your pride before it defeats you. It’s that simple, but we all know it’s not that easy.
We would be utterly miserable if we could not find somebody less than ourselves, somebody to look down on, somebody to make us more pleased with ourselves.
Shame is shameful. That may seem obvious but ponder this observation from the authors of Scenes of Shame: “Shame, indeed, covers shame itself—it is shameful to express shame.”
The foundation of the Christian’s life is that our life is not our own. We don’t belong to ourselves. God has purchased us with the currency of Jesus’s blood.