Arrogant people resist correction. How dare the driver in the car behind them beep for them to turn right on a red light while they are stopped! It happened to me today! How dare a supervisor criticize an aspect of their work they feel good about! It happened to me yesterday!
Arrogance is like the spiders that appear in our homes out of nowhere. It hides in the nooks and crannies of our lives. We must root it out mercilessly because it keeps bad company, and God doesn’t tolerate it.
Reading and applying Scripture renews our minds. It aligns our thinking with God’s. It teaches us what is true and shows what is wrong with us. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right (2 Timothy 3:16). Arrogantly resisting correction kills spiritual transformation as surely as pancreatic cancer kills.
Arrogant people substitute an exaggerated sense of competence for underlying insecurity. They believe they are solely responsible for their successes.
They build walls instead of bridges in relationships. They think they make no mistakes. They live in a land where correction is unnecessary and irritating.
Arrogance blocks the road to wisdom and compassion with a massive landslide of ignorance and imagined superiority. Aesop wrote, “The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.”1
Arrogance offends people and God. God identifies with His people. Those who treat them arrogantly incur His wrath (Exodus 18:11).
Arrogance is an attribute of the wicked (Job 35:12). It hardens their hearts (Psalm 17:10, Daniel 5:20). They are often wealthy (Psalm 73:3). They take advantage of the weak (Psalm 10:2).
God’s people incur His wrath when they think they know better than He does what they should do (Deuteronomy 1:43). I went to graduate school instead of saying yes to God’s initial leading into vocational Christian service. What I thought was best wasn’t satisfying or fulfilling.
Arrogant people ignore God’s wishes and stubbornly behave as if they are wiser than He (Nehemiah 9:16). They refuse to listen to Him or follow His ways (Nehemiah 9:29). They don’t hear or pay attention to Him (Jeremiah 13:15). They are accursed (Psalm 119:21).
Arrogance keeps bad company. Arrogant people are ruthless and have no regard for God (Psalm 54:3, 86:14). They are insolent, proud, haughty, and conceited (Isaiah 16:6, Jeremiah 48:29). They are overfed and unconcerned about the plight of the poor and needy (Ezekiel 16:49). They are greedy and never satisfied (Habakkuk 2:5).
Arrogance springs from the heart as do sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, and folly (Mark 7:22). Many God-offending characteristics are associated with those who are arrogant and boastful.
They are filled with wickedness, evil, greed, depravity, envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice, gossip, slander, hatred of God, and insolence. They manufacture evil. They don’t obey their parents. They are without understanding, fidelity, love, or mercy (Romans 1:29–31). They despise authority (2 Peter 2:10). They are malignantly self-absorbed and self-glorying.
They forget that God has the last word in every situation and can reverse their good fortunes instantly (1 Samuel 2:3). He is against them (Jeremiah 50:31). They can’t commune with Him (Psalm 5:5).
They will be humbled and brought low on the day of judgment (Isaiah 2:11, 17; 5:15). They will stumble and fall, and no one will help them (Jeremiah 50:32). They will be stubble set on fire (Malachi 4:1).
To God, arrogance is idolatry. Saul rejected the LORD’s word and did what he thought was best. As a result, the LORD rejected him as king of Israel (1 Samuel 15:23).
Like mushrooms after a rain, arrogance often emerges after victories. People behave foolishly because of an inflated sense of superiority (2 Kings 14:10). They treat other people as inferior (Nehemiah 9:10). They oppose the righteous (Psalm 31:18).
Arrogant people boast (Psalm 75:4, 94:4), scoff, mock unmercifully (Proverbs 21:24), ridicule (Psalm 123:4), make malicious comments, threaten oppression (Psalm 73:8, 119:51, 122), smear with lies (Psalm 119:69), wrong without cause (Psalm 119:78), and dig pits and set snares to trap people (Psalm 119:85, 140:5).
God resists them but gives grace to humble believers who tremble before Him with godly fear (Romans 11:20). The humble treat their spiritual leaders respectfully (1 Corinthians 4:18). Discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, slander, gossip, arrogance, disorder, boasting in their arrogant schemes, and putting their hope in wealth no longer characterize them (2 Corinthians 12:20, 1 Timothy 6:17, James 4:16). God fills the sails of humble people who trust Him with His grace. #freediscipleshipresources #freeevangelismresources #freechristianleadershipresources
See free spiritual growth resources for Christians at https://www.christiangrowthresources.com.
God has empowered me to write “His Power for Your Weakness—260 Steps Toward Spiritual Strength.” It’s a free evangelistic, devotional, and discipleship eBook. Pastors have used it in Malawi, Mozambique, and Zambia to lead more than 2,400 people to Christ and teach the basics of Christianity to 6,124 people. I invite you to check it out. https://www.christiangrowthresources.com/his-power-for-your-weakness
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