Ezekiel 28:17 – “Your heart was lifted up because of your beauty; You corrupted your wisdom by reason of your splendor.”
As we follow the trail of pride from the heart of the serpent and then as he sunk the poison into human souls, we can see the trail of destruction that pride has brought to the human race. Not only that, however, it has brought massive changes to the created world and to animals as well. Human beings are so blinded by pride and self-love that they simply do not see how despicable and hideous pride and self-centeredness are and what they do to all that they touch. If we can imagine how life would have been without pride and self-centeredness, then we can see the horrid nature of pride. Adam and Eve never would have blamed each other for anything. They would have depended on God for all wisdom and all things. They would have been perfectly one with each other and they would have walked with God as individuals and as a couple. Their children would have grown up without sin and both Cain and Abel would have loved God and each other.
The children of Cain and Abel would have gotten along well and they would not have went after multiple wives and challenged God like Lamech did if they had not been full of self and pride. The trail of pride and self wins itself through the paths of the Old Testament and the hearts of human beings as a serpent winds its way along a trail on a mountain path. We can see the awful results of pride in the hearts of those in the Bible and some in our own day, but we don’t see that same pride in our own hearts. We don’t see the path of the serpent or the effects of the poison of the serpent in our own hearts. We don’t see that pride and self when our desires are not what God desires. We don’t see the pride in our own hearts when we are angry when our wills are crossed and we don’t get what we want. That pride blinds us to our own hearts because the self in those hearts are always providing justifications for our own behavior. We provide ourselves with justification for our own actions and hearts while we condemn the same things in others. Pride and self simply blind us to our own hearts.
From the midst of a people with hearts devoted to self stepped a man that was from the seed of the woman. He was a descendant of Shem who was the blessed son of Noah and his first name in the Bible was Abram (Gen 9:26). The Lord told Abram to leave his people and to another land that he would show him. The Lord made great promises to Abram regarding his future and that he would make him into a great nation (Gen 12). The Lord also promised Abram that the one who blessed him He would bless and the one that cursed him He would curse. The promise even came to Abram that in him all the families of the earth would be blessed (12:1-3). Abram believed these promises enough to leave his relatives and head toward the land the Lord led him to. However, when Abram arrived in Egypt the power of pride and self took over.
It is easy to see how the love of self filled Abram when he was willing to have Sarai his wife pretend to be his sister to save his own life as he thought, but how is that pride? It is pride because he thought of himself rather than the promises of God. He valued his own life more than the words and promises of God. The Lord had told him that He would curse those that cursed Abram. But Abram preferred his own method. Pharaoh and his house were then struck with great plagues because of her. God honored His promises even though Abram in his pride sought to save his own skin in his own way. Abram was blessed, not because he was a great man in and of himself, but because God is a great God who makes promises and keeps them.
The same thing is true today. We can see the promises of God in Scripture, but we still do things our own way. It is pride in our hearts to think that we have the resources to take care of ourselves and even to do the will of God as we please. We are so focused on the survival of self in so many realms that we do not look to the hand of God. While we may mock those that say things like “God helps those that help themselves,” that is still the language of our hearts. We may use the excuse of God using means, and in fact He does use means, but we can use means as a way of serving self under the guise of orthodoxy. God calls His people to be aliens or strangers in this world since it is not our final home. We are just passing through and are not to set up a permanent camp here. We are headed for the true Promised Land. Yet our pride blinds us to the things of the world and we begin to focus on self. Our self-preservation fueled by pride finds reasons to focus on the now. We make excuses, but it is our pride and self that keep us from focusing on the promises of the Lord. How we need to keep our eyes on Him rather than on self.
God Loves... Himself 
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