The Anti-God State of Mind

C.S. Lewis called pride “the great sin.” In his book, Mere Christianity, Lewis said, "According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere flea bites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind…… it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began."

In the secular arena, leaders who have a high level of self-confidence usually excel because they fully comprehend their abilities and are able to leverage those abilities to make things happen. Self-confidence is not bad in of itself, but when it reaches the point where a person becomes un-teachable and/or self-righteous, then it may no longer be self-confidence but pride. It is this type of pride which is being referred to in this blog. The most destructive thing that can plague any leader is pride, but especially when it is a Christian leader.

So what is meant by unteachable? As leaders, we often become set in doing things a certain way because that is what has worked for us in the past. Because of past "victories", we become blind to other ways of doing things. We adopt a "it's my way or the highway" mentality that can actually hinder the work that God wants to do. How? God may be preparing new people with new ideas who can reach people in a way that we haven't been able to reach them before. Some people are receptive to the gospel through music and others through drama. For some, they may only be receptive to the gospel through in-your-face evangelism or one-on-one mentoring. It is for this reason that leaders need to be receptive to new ideas and not attempt to monopolize all decision making and force others to conform to their ideas. As leaders, we need to let God be God because we really don't know it all. We need to stop surrounding ourselves with people who have adopted the exact same practices that we have adopted. We need to replace the "yes men/women" who tell us what we want to hear with Godly men/women who tell us what God is telling them.

So what is meant by self-righteous? As leaders, we sometimes lose sight of our own weaknesses and faults. We sometimes forget that we are mere humans and that we make mistakes, just like everybody else. We become critical of others and start finding faults in others without taking a good hard look at ourselves. We sometimes start believing that we are not accountable to anyone and may even forget that we are accountable to God. We become demanding and controlling to the point where we will not to let go of anything that we were instrumental in starting, and in which we may not have been actively participating, because we feel that we still know best. As a secular leader, I have been involved in many projects from the conception to  implementation of an idea. In the very beginning, I micro-managed those projects to make sure that they were implemented as true to the conceived idea as possible, but at some point I had to learn to let go of my projects and hand the reins over to other people. Sometimes those people would take the project in a slightly different direction because that was what was best for the organization. I suspect that in the spiritual arena, God works the same way. He gives somebody an idea to implement, but at some point they have to turn the reins over and allow others to take it in any new direction that God intends. At that point, we do have to allow God to be God.