The Answer To Pride And Guilt Is The Same

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Most everyone sees pride as an emotion that is built on self-reliance, but guilt is just the same. Pride is just self-reliance with the belief that you’re succeeding. Guilt is self-reliance with the belief that you’re failing. Both are self-reliance which we need to trade for Jesus-reliance.

If you feel that your purity and sufficiency before God is based on what you do (which is what many Christians are taught), you’re relying on yourself. Everything is weighing on what you do. If that’s the way you feel, when you do something right, you’ll feel pride (as any self-reliant person would), but when you fail, you’ll feel guilt (which is also self-reliance). 

The problem is not simply that we shouldn’t feel guilty. The problem is that we shouldn’t be relying on ourselves. We should be relying on God’s righteousness that we have received as a gift. We should be relying on the work of Jesus, who paid for us to have it.

When your Purity, Integrity, and Competence is another Person, Jesus, and not from yourself, how could you ever feel guilty from something you’ve done? You can disapprove or disagree with something you’ve done. That’s perfectly acceptable. But you’ll never feel guilty, dirty, or insufficient in the slightest if you knew that your integrity is Jesus Himself, through what He did at the cross.

The same thing goes for pride. You could never feel proud and lifted up because of something you’ve done, when you know that Jesus is your Righteousness, not yourself. Everything worthy that you have is found in the person of Jesus. It’s not from you. (1 Corinthians 4:7).

When you rely on your own work, you’ll feel prideful when you think you’ve succeeded, and beat yourself up when you slip. The common denominator is you. That’s where self-reliance gets you. It gets you pride or guilt, but they’re two sides of the same “self-reliance-coin.” It just manifests differently whether you believe you’re succeeding or failing. And trust me, no one has ever succeeded on their own.

When people feel guilty, many try to cheer themselves up by telling themselves they did a better job than they actually did. But you see, they’re still relying on themselves. All that will do is push you into pride. When people are proud, many try to depreciate themselves, to convince themselves they’re not as good as they think. While it’s true that we can’t do anything without the Lord, that will just push someone into guilt. The problem is, they’re still relying on their own performance! Whether they convince themselves their performance is good or bad, it’s still about their performance, not about Jesus.

The same thing goes for people that are either depressed or prideful based on their looks, speech, or personality. It’s all just highs and lows based on you, not trusting in what Jesus has done — not realizing that Jesus has provided a better you. In fact, He has given you the image of Himself on the inside, if you’re a believer, and it’s ready to come out! The problem is in looking to yourself for sufficiency.

When I was younger, there were a couple of people in my life that I noticed were always the butt of everyone’s joke. They were teased quite often, so I made up my mind to complement them and lift them up. I did this for only a few weeks, and it’s funny, rather than humbly being encouraged, they started bragging. That’s not what I expected, because I didn’t realize that, whether through complements or criticisms, they were still making it all about them. Whether they were up or down, failing or succeeding, ridiculed or complemented, they were still basing everything on their own performance. They were still relying on themselves.

The answer is to realize that, while we could do nothing of ourselves, we don’t have to, because everything needful to be done has been done by Jesus. He has completed us. For those who believe, our integrity and purity comes from Him, and what He did at the cross. This takes your eyes completely off your performance, it makes you give up on yourself, and leans all your weight on Jesus. That’s Jesus-reliance. That won’t lead to guilt or pride. It takes your eyes completely off yourself and sets them on another Person, as your Righteousness, Competence, and Sufficiency.

Jeremiah 23:6 (NKJV) In His days Judah will be saved, And Israel will dwell safely; Now this is His name by which He will be called: THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS.

The answer is not to put yourself down or lift yourself up. The answer is to forget yourself, give up on yourself, and start trusting Someone else. Start trusting Jesus. 

When you mess up, you’ll be so thankful that Jesus is your righteousness. When the Spirit works something right through you, you’ll be so thankful that Jesus is your righteousness. Sounds like consistency, doesn’t it? And that’s how your emotions will be: Consistent. Consistently happy. Consistently content. Consistently satisfied with the work and person of Jesus. Yourself? Eh, yourself was lost when you received Jesus. What you see in Him is your new self (Romans 6:6).

Give up all hope in yourself and start relying solely on the finished work of Jesus. Your works could never cut it. His work already has.

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