Tag: pride

The Oil of Pride and the Water of Grace

By Ife J. Ibitayo

Last month, I alluded to a significant financial setback on my journey to launching a business. What if I told you since then God has graciously met my need but my pride nearly aborted the whole process?

Pride is Me-Based

America was built on the myth of self-made men and women. We’ve been conditioned to believe, “With unrelenting intensity and a can-do attitude, the best and brightest can move every mountain all on their own.” I’ve all too often fallen into this trap. But all too often bad timing, bad luck, and my bad habits remind me that I can’t always be the solution to my problems.

Grace is God-Based

In his best-selling book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell argues that the truly exceptional “appear at first blush to lie outside ordinary experience…[but their success] is grounded in a web of advantages and inheritances, some deserved, some not.” In other words, our success will always be contingent on forces beyond our control. Even the Bible affirms this truth: “The fastest runner doesn’t always win the race, and the strongest warrior doesn’t always win the battle…And those who are educated don’t always lead successful lives. It is all decided by chance, by being in the right place at the right time” (Ecclesiastes 9:11).

The atheist accept this as randomness, and the spiritual call it destiny. But the believer knows this phenomenon as grace, for even “every roll of the dice is determined by the LORD” (Proverbs 16:33). Grace points to a force beyond our own two hands that ultimately determines the outcomes in our lives. It lifts the weight of responsibility off our shoulders and places it squarely on the LORD’s. This means it also shifts the weight of glory from our crown to His.

Conclusion

Pride and grace are like oil and water; they don’t mix. For God Himself says He “opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble” (James 4:6).

The oil of pride is complex. Crude oil is a mixture of hydrocarbons which has no easily written chemical formula. Similarly, pride requires all sorts of explanations to justify its existence.

But the water of grace is simple. Water has only two components: hydrogen and oxygen. Similarly, grace requires only two responses: gratitude and humility. And these two responses can be summed up in two words: Thank you.

“A man’s pride will bring him low, but a humble spirit will obtain honor.”

(Proverbs 29:23)

The Jesus I Thought I Knew (Father Complex Pt. 2)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

I’m your quintessential African American. I was born with a bottle in one hand and a Bible in the other. Church was my home base, the star my weekly schedule orbited around. Sunday was church day. Wednesday was church night. And I think there were some other, less important days in between.

I mastered the gamut of Sunday school stories about Abraham, Moses, David, and Jesus. I finished reading the Bible through by middle school, and I’ve studied, highlighted, and annotated it from cover to cover several times since. I’ve sometimes found myself wondering, “Is there a Bible Pt. 2? If B.I.B.L.E. stands for ‘Basic Instructions Before Leaving Earth’, are there advanced instructions?”

The Nazarenes Who “Knew” Jesus

I recently reread Jesus’ homecoming story:

“Jesus left that part of the country and returned with His disciples to Nazareth, His hometown. The next Sabbath He began teaching in the synagogue, and many who heard Him were amazed. They asked, ‘Where did He get all this wisdom and the power to perform such miracles?’ Then they scoffed, ‘He’s just a carpenter, the son of Mary and the brother of James, Joseph, Judas, and Simon. And His sisters live right here among us.’ They were deeply offended and refused to believe in Him.

“Then Jesus told them, ‘A prophet is honored everywhere except in His own hometown and among His relatives and His own family.’ And because of their unbelief, He couldn’t do any miracles among them except to place His hands on a few sick people and heal them. And He was amazed at their unbelief” (Mark 6:1-6).

Of all the people to reject Jesus, the Nazarenes knew Him the longest. They’d spent three decades in His presence, watching His deeds and hearing His words. Yet they dismissed Him because they thought they already knew Him.

The Unbelief of “Knowing” Jesus

I find this same pattern playing out in my life. My eyes glaze over when I read John 3:16. Many mornings I let God’s living word slip past me like a shower rather than sink in like a bath. To misquote old man Solomon: “There’s nothing new under the Son” (Ecclesiastes 1:3).

But why does this matter? What are the consequences of knowing the stories but missing their Author? You’ll miss the miracles as well.

I’ve grow numb to the power of the simple gospel. I’ve heard that “faith can move mountains” (Mark 11:23). Yet I’ve seen the tension between faith and endurance, abundance and suffering, joy and sorrow. And I forget that even though “Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8), life is not. And Jesus’ response to my situation yesterday may not—often, will not—be the same as His response today.

Conclusion

I think these truths are why Jesus said, “You must turn and become like children” (Matthew 18:3). Children know they haven’t gotten it all figured out. They readily accept the unexpected. They’re still open to having their minds blown!

I want to see healing, restoration, and resurrection. I want to accept that the patterns and rhythms I expect from God may change in an instant. I thought I knew Jesus, but I’ve only dipped my toes into the surf of His boundless oceans. I want to cast off my water wings of preconceived notions. Only then, will Jesus guide me into the deep end where feet fail and faith floats.

“To all perfection I see a limit, but your commands are boundless.”
(Psalm 119:96)

The Fear and Pride of Vladimir Putin (Shared History, Broken Promises Pt. 1)

By Ife J. Ibitayo

As bombs burst, rifles blast, and fires blaze in Ukraine—a nation with a larger population than California—I find myself with a long list of questions and too few answers. Top among them is: What is motivating Vladimir Putin to invade another sovereign nation?

Fear

One of Putin’s primary motivators is fear. “In a pre-dawn TV address on 24 February, he declared Russia could not feel ‘safe, develop, and exist’ because of what he claimed was a constant threat from modern Ukraine.” Considering that Russia’s army alone is larger than the entire Ukrainian armed forces, this is a patently ridiculous claim. But fear drives irrationality.

Whether it be Brexit overseas or Trumpism here at home, fear of others brings out the worst in all of us. But love brings out the best. That is why love and fear cannot coexist. As the Apostle John said, “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18). True love casts out fear, not other people. It doesn’t invade their homeland but invites them into our own.

Pride

Secondly, Putin is motivated by pride. “The Russian dictator has grown to see himself as not another middling, kleptocratic dictator, but as a figure of historic import, dedicated to restoring Russian greatness.” Here in the United States, we’ve seen the tremendous amount of damage attempting to make a nation “great again” can wreak. All too often, those who lift themselves up do so by pushing others down. They reduce greatness to a zero-sum game where in order to win, everyone else must lose. But that was never God’s intent for greatness.

Jesus said, “Whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many” (Matthew 20:26-28). We were made for greatness, but it can only be found by putting others first. Our selfish desires must give way to selfless ones. Our backs must bend to scrub other people’s feet, just like Jesus did (John 13:4-5). Only then will we lay hold of true greatness rather than egotistical self-aggrandizement.

Conclusion

Fear and pride lay close at hand for all of us. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, a former prisoner of Russia’s Gulag once said, “The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart.” The only thing that separates you and me from a tyrannical dictator is not culture, education, or power. It’s grace.

“But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: ‘God resists the proud, But gives grace to the humble.’”

(James 4:6)

Whose Glory Is It Anyway?

By Ife J. Ibitayo

A little over a year ago, God led me to start this blog. I baptized the process in prayer, reached out to friends and family, and even posted flyers around my neighborhood. I had naively hoped that even if it didn’t ride the rocket to stardom that I’d at least be able to generate some level of interest. But now it’s been over a year, and my rocket has yet to take off.

Whose Glory?

As I mentioned in my article on fame, my drug of choice has always been glory. Michael Jordan, Barak Obama, and Ife Ibitayo should all be mentioned in the same breath. Interestingly enough, fame is something that God wants too.

There are eighty-eight different passages in the Bible that speak of God doing something in order that people may “know that I am the LORD” (Exodus 7:5, 1 Kings 20:13, and Isaiah 49:23 to name a few). But since we’re both seeking glory, who does it properly belong to?

His Glory?

In the book of Isaiah, God says, “‘I am the Lord! That is my name! I will not share my glory with anyone else, or the praise due me with idols’” (Isaiah 42:8). So clearly God thinks He deserves all the praise and the honor and the majesty. Considering that He is the Creator of the universe, the Sustainer of all life, and the Savior of all mankind, that is probably a reasonable demand. But then why do we so desire glory for ourselves?

My Glory?

The root of our glory seeking is pride. It began with Satan in heaven in ages past. He said, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the north. I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:13-14).

Satan’s folly lay in attempting to set himself above God, and the same pride lies in our own hearts. We may not speak such blatantly boastful words, but we too think that we deserve praise and admiration. By the sweat of our brows and the work of our hands, we’ve fought for what we have today.

Chastising the Corinthians who were being ensnared by the same evil, Paul said, “What do you have that you did not receive” (1 Corinthians 4:7)? Our intelligence, our physique, and more were shaped by forces largely outside our control. We didn’t pave the path to where we are today but found it by stumbling across the yellow brick road of grace and mercy.

Our Glory

Yet the amazing thing about God’s glory is that it actually leaves room for our own as well. Before He was taken up to heaven, Jesus told the Father, “I’ve given them the glory that you gave me” (John 17:22). Jesus emphasized that there is glory that we can and should seek. But it is not derived from our own awesomeness but from the LORD’s. As we seek to glorify God on this earth, we may not receive the recognition we wish we did. But the LORD recognizes us, and He will glorify us at the proper time.

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.”

(1 Peter 5:6)