pride on Grudges

What can we say, O Lord, to justify ourselves? You shower us with grace upon grace. Your mercies are new every morning. And we find it hard to forgive others. Sometimes we are petty and hold grudges f...

Heavenly Father, we come before Your throne of grace to confess our sin. We have been selfish instead of generous; we have been proud instead of humble; we have held grudges instead of forgiving; we h...

Pride slays thanksgiving, but a humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.

Frederick William I was a king of Prussia in the early 18th century. Personality-wise, he was described as exacting, frugal and austere. He was known to beat his children when they disappointed him. H...

O God, we thank thee thou that hast made man in thine own image. Help us to see ourselves as thou seest us, all standing in need of thy mercy yet dear unto thee. We confess to the many injustices and ...

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they ...

Abraham Lincoln’s sharp wit often surfaced, even in serious moments. At the funeral of a talented but overly vain Army General during the Civil War, Lincoln observed the large crowd that had gathered....

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

God and Father of all, in your love you made all the nations of the world to be a family, and your Son taught us to love one another. Yet our world is riven apart with prejudice, arrogance, and pride....

“Whom the gods wish to destroy,” Cyril Connolly famously said, “they first call promising.” Twenty-five hundred years before that, the elegiac poet Theognis wrote to his friend, “The first thing, Kurn...

Eternal God, Your love for us is without end, yet our love for you and for one another is weak, often interrupted by self-centeredness ... distrust ... vindictiveness. Whenever we come together to...

Lord, you know we are a hard-hearted people. We are prideful. We are stubborn. We are disloyal. We are like the people of Israel who were freed from slavery in Egypt by your powerful right hand, but t...

Pride juggles with her toppling towers, They strike the sun and cease, But the firm feet of humility They grip the ground like trees.

We sometimes find God’s forgiveness to be offensive: “It reveals us to be distressingly like everyone else!” (And we are so special.)

An Unfair Deal Despite our vast differences, there seems to exist an innate sense of “fairness” in all humans when it comes to things such as “waiting your turn” or “cutting in line.” One would be ha...

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? ...

Do you take pride in your hurt? Does it make you seem large and tragic? ...Well, think about it. Maybe you're playing a part on a great stage with only yourself as audience."

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

The Showdown The key to understanding today’s passage is to be found in Jesus’ previous confrontation with “the chief priests and elders” in Matt. 21.23-32. There, the religious leaders of the Temple...

Loving and Merciful God, we come before you today aware of our own selfish pride. We have chosen our way above your way. We have chosen our opinions over the unity of your church. Forgive us where we ...

In the summer of 1986, two ships collided in the Black Sea off the coast of Russia. Hundreds of passengers died as they were hurled into the icy waters below. News of the disaster was further darkened...

The world has always despised people from the wrong places and with the wrong credentials. We are always trying to justify ourselves. We need desperately to feel superior to others. And everything abo...

Risen Christ, The world despised and rejected you You responded with grace, humility, and welcome The proud questioned your power, devised your death You responded with peace, forgiveness, and new lif...

This is one of Jesus’ most vivid parables. He paints a dramatic picture of two figures, with a twist to upend his hearer’s expectations. While the context of this passage involves the dynamics of an a...

Pastor: “Hear the word of the LORD, O children of Israel, for the LORD has a controversy with the inhabitants of the land. There is no faithfulness or steadfast love, and no knowledge of God in the la...

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...

Lord, we confess that we are tempted to be relevant, to be popular, and to be powerful. In our pride, we seek to be recognized as great. Humble us and remind us that we are your beloved children, who ...

Catch {a person} at the moment when he is really poor in spirit and smuggle into his mind the gratifying reflection, "By jove, I'm being humble," and almost immediately pride - pride at ...

Prayer of Adoration Great God our Father: You are good and You are strong. You are faithful and true, and You won’t tempt or lie to us. In a world that appeals to our sinful cravings and dominated b...

Today I come to that part of Christian morals where they differ most sharply from all other morals. There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which everyone loathes when he sees it in so...