bible and theology on Self-Exaltation

“His aim was the glory of God, but the glory of Philip pleased him too.”

Give up yourself, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end...

With vainglory, we crave notice of our achievements with pride, we take full credit for the progress we have made and do not think that God has been involved at all, let alone been our indispensible h...

Pride is a by-product of insecurity. And the more insecure a person is, the more monuments they need to build. There is a fine line between 'Thy kingdom come' and 'my kingdom come.' If...

In Greek mythology, Narcissus was a handsome young man who caught sight of his reflection in a pond, fell in love with his own image, toppled into the water and drowned. So “narcissism” is an excessiv...

One of the great ironies of sin is that when human beings try to become more than human beings, to be as gods, they fall to become lower than human beings. To be your own God and live for your own glo...

A predominant characteristic . . . of the behavior of those I call evil is scapegoating. Because in their hearts they consider themselves above reproach, they must lash out at anyone who does reproach...

Expert Pamela Rutledge explained in an article for Psychology Today that taking selfies is indicative of the tornado of narcissism. The selfie is the appropriate snapshot of the state of identity in t...

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Real self-conquest is the conquest of ourselves not by ourselves but by the Holy Spirit. Self-conquest is really self-surrender. Yet before we can surrender ourselves, we must become ourselves. For no...

Perfection....it functions as a form of myopia, a preoccupation with self-image that can stunt emotional growth.

Great achievement is usually born of great sacrifice, and is never the result of selfishness.

Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit. Self-righteousness w...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

Almighty God, we take pride in our self-sufficiency while we look down on the weak who cannot provide for themselves. We praise others for their efforts, yet we demand perfection from our own families...

The word worship comes from the Old English weorthscipe, which combines two words meaning “ascribe worth.” The Trinity can be said to be always at worship because the three persons of the Godhead perf...

In his thoughtful book, Our Good Crisis: Overcoming Moral Chaos with the Beatitudes , Jonathan K. Dodson points out our blind-spots with respect to pride: We rarely think of ourselves as proud. I...

You will never glory in God till first of all God has killed your glorying in yourself.

The common expression that describes such a value system as “the pursuit of the almighty dollar” is soundly based in the recognition that the exaltation of possessions to the level of ultimacy is the ...

The Christian’s self-understanding is that she is precious before God—however much a sinner, however much a failure (or success) she may be by the standards of worldly comparisons—and that every other...

Prosperity inebriates men, so that they take delights in their own merits.

Self-made and self-sufficient people live in a fantasy world, empty of the reality of God. In contrast, the poor in spirit are deeply aware of being God-made and God-sufficient:

How does the theme of glory that predominates in Epiphany fit with the large amount of space devoted to the Sermon on the Mount during the season? It all depends on what one means by glory. The “g...

[I]f to govern realms belong to few, Yet all who live have passions to subdue. Self-conquest is the lesson books should preach, Self-conquest is the theme the stages should teach.

Many people live righteously for selfish or misguided reasons. If you are striving to please God, examine your motives today.

In a sermon delivered at Christ Church Cathedral in Nashville, Tennessee, Christian ethicist Stanley Hauerwas turns his attention to the dangerous seduction of crowds: It is a terrible thing to fall...

If you are ever going to be an ambassador in the hands of a God of glorious and powerful grace, you must die. You must die to your plans for your own life. You must die to your self-focused dreams of ...

Loving Father, You receive all who come humbly before You. Yet we approach You far too often with much satisfaction and inappropriate pride. We think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think. W...

Self-indulgence is the enemy of gratitude, and self-discipline usually its friend and generator. That is why gluttony is a deadly sin. The early desert fathers believed that a person’s appetites are l...

Leader: Heavenly Father, I confess that I have sinned against you. I have delighted my soul in other things more than I have in you. Why, then, is it any surprise to me that you feel far off from me? ...