In a random moment, my young son asked a particularly unexpected and thoughtful question: “Mom, why is it okay for us to try to be like God, but wrong for the snake in the tree?” He understood that we are to imitate God’s holiness and he understood that Satan, the Edenic serpent, was cursed for attempting to be ‘like the Most High’. What he didn’t understand, in the innocence of his youth, was the horrible blackness of consuming pride that so clearly differentiates these two scenarios. The believer imitates God in humble eagerness to abide in Spirit-pleasing holiness. However, there was and is nothing humble in Satan’s motives.

In the biblical narrative, Lucifer, a once-radiant angelic creature, is condemned for an arrogance so grievous that, in His rebellion to the True God, he desired to be a god himself. He wanted an exalted throne, worship and the position of deity. His offense is engirdling conceit and his curse is eternal damnation. His brief and limited liberties will soon be forever suspended, where he will suffer debasing captivity in endless weakness. (Isaiah 14:9-15).

Pride, which putrefied a jewel of the heavenly host, continues to tempt men today - no less black and no less destructive. None of us are free of her relentless taunt. Daily we encounter opportunities to exalt self and cherish one’s own merit. We’re apt to choose our own comfort and convenience before that of others and we’re easily distracted by excessive preoccupations of personal concern. In our fleshly nature, pride is bred in the bones of men.

One of the most clandestine ways pride subverts the soul is in the denial of its presence. If we do not believe we’re affected by pride, we’re very unlikely to change and if we are aware of our pride, we must treat our infection and commit to change. Blaise Pascal, French mathematician, physicist and religious philosopher, wrote: “If one does not know himself to be full of pride, ambition, concupiscence, weakness, pettiness, injustice, one is very blind. And if, knowing this, a man does not desire to be delivered, what can one say to him?" If every person had humility enough to merely recognize self-pride, we’d all have hope for deliverance in Jesus Christ.

Our Lord Jesus Christ is the picture of humility. He who was and is Almighty, Creator God “made Himself of no reputation, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men: And being found in fashion as a man, He humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.” (Philippians 2:7-8, KJV) Such a contrast is drawn between Satan and Christ, pride and humility. While Satan was clamoring for greater authority and self-promotion, Christ was stripping Himself of all rightful dignity in order to lay His life down for His sheep, counting His love for us worthy of sacrifice.

And so, my son’s question is answered: The difference is pride versus humility. It is a matter of the heart and it has always been the heart that God has examined. When God peers into yours and into mine, what will He find reflected there: a semblance of Himself or a semblance of the ‘snake in the tree’; selfishness or selflessness?

We must study the nature of Christ and strive to be like Him – loving, sacrificial and willing to serve others. If there is a diagnosis of pride it is excessive self-love; if there is an antidote for pride it is the love of others powered by the Spirit of God.

“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others.

Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 2:3-5, KJV).

Liz Miller lives in Daphne with her husband Matt and son, Logan. She looks forward to responding to your thoughts, prayer requests and guest speaker invitations, please write to millerfam3@hotmail.com.