Devotion: Proverbs 29:23

Proverbs 29:23 Pride brings a person low, but the lowly in spirit gain honor.

We have had numerous opportunities this month to look at pride and its overall effects on our life. We find ourselves looking at it yet again today, with yet another proverb that helps us to see once more just how bad pride can be in our life and what we need to do instead.

The context of this verse helps us to better understand it, so let’s take a pause and read a few verses on each side of the proverb and then come back.

This verse follows warnings against uncontrolled temper (Proverbs 29:22) and precedes warnings about the fear of man (Proverbs 29:25). Knowing this helps us to understand that pride is a root of social conflict and personal downfall.

It highlights an irony for the prideful – the pride a person has and uses to bring them to a higher status, to elevate themselves or exalt themselves is the same pride that eventually causes their humiliation. To help us today understand what we should NOT do, how we should not live, we have this example. It acts as a warning against arrogance, a reminder that humility is better and true, bringing lasting honor and prestige.

Instead of pride we should act with humility. We need to understand that we are nothing without God and we need to have the right view of ourselves as such. But unlike the proud who are promised destruction and disaster, we have the promise of exaltation. We know this because it is scattered throughout the Bible. We see it in Proverbs 16:18 (where we also see the promise of destruction to the prideful), and again by Jesus in Luke 14:11 and Luke 18:14 where Jesus says that those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Are you living a prideful life? Or are you humbling yourself before God? Let’s spend some time today in humble submission before God asking Him to search our hearts and show us any sin that might still be present that we need to lay at His feet (Psalm 139:23).

Prayer: Lord, I don’t want to be prideful and exalt myself. I want to be humble. I recognize that You are all powerful and glorious and I am nothing. Search my heart, Lord, and show me my sins that I may confess them. Amen 

You might also like this:

Devotion: Psalm 3:3 Devotion: Philippians 1:18 Devotion: Isaiah 61:1