Fighting Pride

http://www.desiringgod.org/articles/how-to-fight-the-sin-of-pride-especially-when-you-are-praised


Lord,

I am not self-existent; only you are. Only You are absolute, but I am contingent. I am utterly dependent on You for my origin and for my present and future existence.

I am by nature a depraved sinner and that, in all my sinning, I have treated You with contempt, preferring other things to Your glory. I take stock that I have never done a good deed for which I don't need to repent. Each one is flawed because perfection is commanded. Therefore I realize that You owe me nothing but pain in this life and the next. This condition of mine is so desperate that it could only be remedied at the cost of the horrid death of Your Son, to bear my punishment and provide my righteousness. I revel in the forgiveness and righteousness that is mine in Christ.

Clothe me with humility towards others. You oppose the proud but give grace to the humble. Help us to humble ourselves under Your mighty hand so that you may exalt us at the proper time. Remind me that the least among us shall be great. May I see these thruths for what they really are. Help us to feel them with a sense of the meekness and lowliness and brokenness that corresponds to their true weight.

I renounce desires for praise and notoriety and esteem when I see them rising. I turn my mind toward the beauty and truth and worth of Christ.

I try to receive all criticism — from friend or foe — with the assumption that there is almost certainly some truth in it that I can benefit from.

I strive to cultivate a joy in Christ and his wisdom and power and justice and love that is more satisfying than the pleasures of human praise, with the goal that, by the Spirit, I would be granted the miracle of self-forgetfulness in the admiration of Christ, and in love toward people.

In Jesus' name,
Amen


Scripture: 1 Peter 5:5-6, James 4:6-10, Luke 9:48, Mark 9:35, Matthew 20:26, James 1:19