From my friend Sean Higgins’ blog Tohu Va Bohu.
Pride also takes assorted shapes and sizes though some displays of pride are more familiar and others are often unexplored. The following quotes are from What Jesus Demands from the World and they expose two standard sorts of self-admiration with surgical accuracy.
Boasting is the response of pride to success. Self-pity is the response of pride to suffering. Boasting says, “I deserve admiration because I have achieved so much.” Self-pity says, “I deserve admiration because I have sacrificed so much.” …The reason self-pity does not look like pride is that it appears to be needy. But the need arises from a wounded ego, and the desire is not really for others to see them as helpless but as heroes. The need that self-pity feels does not come from a sense of unworthiness but from a sense of unrecognized worthiness. It is the response of unapplauded pride.
And then just a little down the page,
A person can seem to feel unworthy by constantly depreciating himself in public, but all the while feel angry that others do not recognize this as a virtue. (p.126)
Charles Spurgeon in his book “Soul Winner” as quoted by Mike Gilbart-Smith on the Loving Church blog.
There are two sorts of proud people, and it is difficult sometimes to say which of the two is the worse. There is, first of all, the kind that is full of that vanity which talks about itself, and invites other people to talk about it, too, and to pat it on the back, and stroke its feathers the right way. It is all full of its little morsel of a self, and goes strutting about, and saying, “Praise me, please, praise me, I want it,” like a little child who goes to each one in the room, and says, “See my new dress; isn’t it a beauty?” You may have seen some of these pretty dears; I have met many of them.
The other kind of pride is too big for that sort of thing. It does not care for it; it despises people so much that it does not condescend to wish for their praises. It is so supremely satisfied with itself that it does not stoop to consider what others think of it. I have sometimes thought it is the more dangerous kind of pride spiritually, but it is much the more respectable of the two. There is, after all, something very noble in being too proud to be proud. Suppose those great donkeys did bray at you, do not be such a donkey as to notice them. But this other poor little soul says, “Well, everybody’s praise is worth something,” and so he baits his mousetraps, and tries to catch little mice of praise, that he may cook them for his breakfast. He has a mighty appetite for such things. Brethren, get rid of both kinds of pride if you have anything of either of them about you. The dwarf pride and the ogre pride are both of them abominations in the sight of the Lord. Never forget that you are disciples of Him who said, “Learn of Me; for I am meek and lowly in heart.”
From C.J. Mahaney’s book “Humility: True Greatness.”
John Stott has clearly thought about this and wrote the following: “At every stage in our Christian development and in every sphere of our Christian discipleship, pride is the greatest enemy and humility our greatest friend.”
Pride takes innumerable forms but has only one end: self-glorification. That’s the motive and ultimate purpose of pride- to rob God of legitimate glory and to pursue self-glorification, contenting for supremacy with Him. The proud person seeks to glorify himself and not God, thereby attempting in effect to deprive God of something only He is worthy to receive.
Martyn Lloyd-Jones wrote the following about the surest way to pursue humility: “There is only one thing I know of that crushes me to the ground and humiliates me to the dust, and that is to look at the Son of God, and especially contemplate the cross… Nothing else can do it. When I see that I am a sinner…that nothing but the Son of God on the cross can save me, I’m humbled to the dust… Nothing but the cross can give us this spirit of humility.”