pride

February 25, 2021March 9, 2021

Love, Pride, and Creativity

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I was recently reading up on the life of French artist Henri Matisse, and came across these quotes from an article he wrote:

Creation is the artist’s true function; where there is no creation there is no art. But it would be a mistake to ascribe this creative power to an inborn talent. In art, the genuine creator is not just a gifted being, but a man who has succeeded in arranging for their appointed end a complex of activities, of which the work of art is the outcome.

[…] Great love is needed to achieve this effect, a love capable of inspiring and sustaining that patient striving towards truth, that glowing warmth and that analytic profundity that accompany the birth of any work of art. But is not love the origin of all creation? (“Is Not Love the Origin of All Creation?”)

For an artist who was cryptic about his religious beliefs, I think that’s a shockingly insightful take on where true creativity comes from: love is not only important, but at the center of it all.

Paul says something strikingly similar that you might be familiar with:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ²And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. […] ⁸Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. ⁹For we know in part and we prophesy in part, ¹⁰ but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. ¹¹When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. ¹²For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. ¹³So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love. (2 Corinthians 13:1-3, 8-13)

Paul goes a bit further than to simply say that love is at the center of all things, but he draws out the clear implication. Anything without love is useless and very likely harmful.

It’s something I experienced in my early days as a photographer, and I suspect the experience is common to many beginning artists: the desire to be excellent and attain mastery instantly kills creative effort because it’s typically born out of an insecure need to be someone great and to be admired by others as great. It’s not born of any love or interest in the subject and art itself; it’s born of a paradoxically proud and insecure love for only oneself. I’ve found it to be one of the greatest roadblocks in growing as an artist, and even now I wrestle with it as I try to learn and grow in new ways.

Pride kills creativity because pride is the opposite of love.

As Elim continues towards its next season, I think it’s important for all of us to seriously pray and think about our reasons for existing as a church. Why are we here? Why are we involved? As we learn alongside a new pastor, forge new ministries, and preach the gospel in Puyallup, why are we doing these things? Do we build because we love? Or do we build to be seen? Is the good of our community our great delight? Or do we seek to prove ourselves against others? Is it our glad honor to be part of spreading the good news of our Lord’s kingdom? Or do we just want a kingdom of comfort here and now, for ourselves?

These are crucial questions because in no small part, hard days are probably ahead. Some ministries will fail, and other efforts will take much longer to bear fruit than we’d like. If our motivations really are an insecure need to prove ourselves or a selfish need for comfort here and now, we’ll have no tolerance for trying new things, for repenting when we’re wrong, and for growing slowly into the church we would like to be.

But if love is at the center of it all? We will continue to sacrifice, continue to love our neighbor, and continue to do good even when it’s hard.

Pray with me, Elim. Pray that our Lord would make us more and more a people of deep, compassionate, generous, longsuffering love. Other matters of discipline and ministry style are certainly important—but none so much as us actually loving our God and actually loving our neighbors.

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September 19, 2013April 4, 2014

Reflections From the Shoe

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By Nate Champneys

“Pride goes before destruction.” Solomon said it perfectly with his God-given wisdom. And it amazes me, when you look at all the sin that so easily entangles us, how so much of it is rooted in pride. When I look at my own life, the sin of pride is vastly prevalent, and it is that sin of pride that I just can’t seem to get rid of. So many times I get into an argument with my wife, then it isn’t until later that I see my pride clearly. I have to say, “Honey, I’m so sorry. This really is simply my pride.”

I get so frustrated by my sin sometimes. I just look up and say to God, “Why aren’t you finished with me yet?!?” When you consider your own sin, isn’t it amazing that God still cares about us? The Psalmist says this:

When I consider your heavens,
the work of your fingers,
the moon and the stars,
which you have set in place,
what is mankind that you are mindful of them,
human beings that you care for them? (Psalm 8:3-4)

When you consider how small, insignificant, pitiful, and sinful we are compared to the glory, wonder, size and complexity of the universe that our creator God holds on the tip of His pinky, I can’t help but ask, “Why hasn’t God just stepped on us and squashed us already?” “Why doesn’t He simply put us out of our misery?” It makes me feel like bacteria on the bottom of a massive shoe when I compare myself to His glory.

I mentioned this in a prayer time at church a few weeks ago, and later on during this prayer time, a friend prayed: “Thank you Jesus for coming down to the bottom of this shoe!” Wow. That really puts things in perspective. The God of glory humbled himself and essentially became the equivalent of a bacterium on the bottom of a shoe and gave his life for us, the bacteria on the bottom of that shoe. Remarkable! It really is impossible to truly understand the love of God until you grasp to some degree the majesty and glory of God and are then able to see the heights that Jesus stepped down from.

Now THAT is the exact opposite of pride. That is the God we serve! 1 Corinthians 13 tells us, “Love is not proud.“ Pride is so contrary to who God is, yet it is one of those acceptable sins we excuse, even though it so easily entangles us (Hebrews 12:1). We serve a God who is so glorious that in the same way He spoke the universe into existence, He could cause everything to go back to nothingness in an instant and simply start over. And yet he is mindful of us. God is the opposite of pride when he has every right to be prideful. This is love: “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God!” (1 John 3:1)

The Creator God, who is so far beyond our comprehension, emptied Himself and “became a bacterium” in order to give His life for you. I don’t know about you, but this lavish love is the only thing that truly puts my pride into perspective.

“Thank you, Jesus, for coming to the bottom of this shoe!

Hebrews 12:1-2

Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

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August 29, 2013October 20, 2013

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By Brian Waple

In Matthew 23:25-26, Jesus declares, “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy—full of greed and self-indulgence! You blind Pharisee! First wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean, too” (NLT).

That’s a pretty strong indictment! How often have you read Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees and thought, “Man, I’m sure glad I’m not like them.” But how often do we read this and take an honest look at what motivates us? I’m certainly not saying that we are “filthy,” or “full of greed and indulgence.” However, I’m sure there are times when it’s our own human nature (rather than prayerful consideration and discernment) that drives a decision or particular course of action. I think part of what Jesus is saying is that before we allow ourselves to take a step that may have serious consequences, we need to take a moment and discern what is driving our decision. It might be good to ask the question, “How much of my human nature am I allowing to make the decision?”

In his book The Freedom of Self Forgetfulness, Tim Keller uses Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians to illustrate what Keller calls the transformed view of self, or “simply thinking of myself less.” He shows that it’s often our pride that drives what we do and how we react, and it is our pride that makes us believe we need to perform to some standard to be validated in the eyes of men. Pride will drive greed and self-indulgence; pride will drive intolerance; pride will drive us to be critical; pride will make us selfish; pride will drive our desire to be accepted. But by putting our pride aside (that is, thinking of ourselves less), we can discover what it means to be open to where the Spirit is leading and be willing to see what God may be showing us.

Keller says, “In Christianity, the moment we believe, God imputes Christ’s perfect performance to us as if it were our own, and adopts us into His family. In other words, God can say to us just as He once said to Christ, ‘You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.’” As believers, God is already well pleased with us, and doesn’t require any pride-motivated performance to gain His approval.

It is by thinking of ourselves less that we can truly be open to the needs of others. It is by laying aside our pride that we can be open and present to God’s leading. And, in turn, it is by trusting in God’s faithfulness that we can be assured that the inside of our cup is just as clean as the outside.

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