If you’ve ever come across someone haughty, you know the kind of impression they can leave. It’s akin to eating a sour grape, waking up with plaque residue on your teeth, or smelling something wafting on the breeze that has gone to putrefaction. There’s a naturally visceral reaction to haughtiness that cannot be denied because it’s reminiscent of the sin that lay at the heart of the fall of man and the fall of Lucifer the Morningstar.
Although some contemporary preachers prance about insisting
that haughtiness is next to godliness, the Word tells us that it’s not. It’s as
offputting to God as any other sin that might be found in the camp that
directly bespoils the atmosphere of righteousness the household of faith is
called to dwell in.
Proverbs 16:18, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty
spirit before a fall.”
Although the two are different, and there is a nuance between
pride and haughtiness, they spring from the same root, grow on the same tree,
and bear the same fruit. While pride is a feeling of deep pleasure or
satisfaction derived from one’s own achievements, haughtiness is more aptly
defined as having an attitude of superiority and contempt for people perceived
to be inferior in some form or fashion.
There should never be an instant in your Christian walk
wherein you look down on a fellow brother or sister in Christ and consider them
spiritually inferior to you because they choose not to practice some
non-salvific thing that you’ve chosen to practice. Whether it’s growing a
beard, wearing a necktie, putting pineapple on a pizza, or not kneeling when
they pray, the practice of such things or the failure to practice such things
does not make one more righteous or greater than another.
The seed of haughtiness can sprout out of anywhere at any
time. The most mundane things can incline one toward looking down upon another
with a haughty spirit if it is not uprooted and allowed to go unchecked.
For some as yet unexplained reason, there’s always the
tendency to gravitate toward something we can point to in our Christian walk
that will cause others to see us as different, special, or extraordinary.
Because the wolves among us understand human nature and play to our weaknesses,
there is a myriad of extra-biblical teachings and doctrine floating in the
ether insisting that if you subscribe to this or that, you too will be head and
shoulders above the rest, superior, and elite.
It goes without saying that such a mindset is fallow ground
for disunity within the body, and the enemy is more than happy to fan the
flames because he understands that a house divided against itself cannot stand.
The cliques get smaller and smaller, the body grows more divided, and before
you know it, you find yourself alone against the hoard, wondering where all
your fellow soldiers ran off to.
We cannot over-emphasize the importance of fellowship and
brotherly love within a body enough. Anything that would threaten the bond of
fellowship or cause disunity must be dealt with in the light of the gospel
before it can reach its desired goal: to fracture and disjoin a body to the
point that it becomes useless and of no benefit to the Kingdom.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-12, “Two are better than one because they
have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will lift up his
companion. But woe to him who is alone when he falls, for he has no one to help
him up. Again, if two lie down together, they will keep warm; but how can one
be warm alone? Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him.
And a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”
Haughtiness is the perfect delivery system for division
within a church body. It also works quite well in families, especially when the
biblical hierarchy God established is not adhered to. There are always
consequences to disobedience, whether they manifest in the moment or years down
the line.
Back in the day, the big debate in the Romanian church was
about the head covering and how big the scarf needed to be in order to count as
a head covering. While the younger sisters preferred the narrower head
coverings, the older sisters gravitated toward the babushka look, wherein an
oversized wool scarf covered the entire head. Things began to go sideways when
the older sisters started to look down on the younger ones, thinking they were
superior just because the piece of cloth they chose to wear on their heads was
wider.
It may sound silly, in hindsight, it was, but the silliest of
things can open the door to a haughty spirit, and if given latitude, it can
metastasize to the point of perceiving those who are your fellow members in
Christ with contempt. This seemingly silly thing was responsible for church
splits and all manner of harbored animosity in people’s hearts because no one
would budge. In misguided attempts to defend their wife’s conviction, mature
men were at each other’s throats, ichaboding like there was no tomorrow because
the other brother’s wife didn’t see it the same way. Everyone thought they were
right, and in their quest to prove how right they were, they dismissed God’s
counsel and ignored the order He established.
It turns out little foxes can spoil the vine, not just big
ones. Unsurprisingly, the Bible was right again. There seems to be a pattern
emerging, but it may just be my overactive imagination. Then again, it may just
be reality staring us in the face.
As long as they are allowed to spread unchecked, even the
smallest of issues can give way to a haughty spirit, and the most tertiary of
topics can become unbridgeable chasms in fellowship seemingly overnight.
Not only is a united body stronger in defending against the
enemy and his attacks from without when it is of one mind with Christ as head
of the church, but any untoward, unbiblical, or ungodly teaching attempting to
creep in can also be identified, isolated, and excised before it can cause
harm.
Posted on 3 August 2024 | 12:23 pm
Page processed in 0.033 seconds.