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Two Types of Pride ... and Both are Bad. Do You Trust God?
July 21, 2026 · 22 min
Guidance on examining motives—acts of commission, envy, and the danger of taking glory meant for God.
Series Russell Gray's Morning Muse July 21, 2026 · 22 min · Russell Gray's Morning Muse
Guidance on examining motives—acts of commission, envy, and the danger of taking glory meant for God. ...more Show the full description Show less Guidance on examining motives—acts of commission, envy, and the danger of taking glory meant for God.
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Pride of Commission: The Grab for Glory 0:03 Welcome to the Morning Muse. I'm Russell Gray. Excited to be here with you today. And what I'm contemplating is a scripture that we've heard probably many times that pride goes before a0:15 fall. And, you know, if you watch the old Star Wars movie and Anakin is fighting against Christopher Lee, who I think was Count Dooku, and bragging about how his power had grown. And Count0:27 Dooku said that's great. The more the pride, the bigger the fall. And so I think that's a biblical concept and I think something that any ambitious person, any person who's got the confidence to go into the world and try0:38 to take on solving a hard problem, building a big business, making a lot of money, stepping on stage, putting their mouth on a microphone, going into the marketplace to compete, athletes have to go through the same0:48 thing. There's this sense of who you are and what you're capable of and a willingness to step up and put yourself out there. And so God says in Proverbs 16 2 and I think1:00 also again in Proverbs 21 2, I believe it is, where a man's way seem right in his own eyes, but God weighs the motives. And obviously, I think pride1:12 is an area that motivates people, and what the Bible is warning us about is that pride can go before fall. So the exact scriptures, Proverbs 16 18,1:24 and it says pride goes before destruction and a haughty spirit before a fall. And so in my life, and I'm always just talking about my life and gleaning1:36 lessons out of my experience and sharing those with you, hopefully, that you can pull some wisdom out of it for your own life. And I'm not saying my experience is going to be your experience, but it is an experience that1:47 we can learn from other people's experiences. And I always appreciate people who take time to share their experiences with me, even though sometimes it's embarrassing and I know certainly when I go to share things with1:57 you, sometimes those things are embarrassing to me too. But if I can share something with you that's gonna make your life better, it can help you accelerate a lesson, get it sooner, avoid a bigger pitfall, get2:08 back in the game, get back into being in service to the Lord, then I think all of whatever I suffer is worth it. And of course, in our day and age, most of the suffering we suffer is not really what2:20 anybody in historical context would consider to be suffering at all. It's all it's all relative. I'm pretty safe, pretty comfortable. Maybe somebody's gonna criticize me or make fun of me, but, you know, as they told mePride of Omission: False Humility 2:31 when I was a kid, sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me. If only that were true, but they do. They hurt you because you have pride. You have this sense of self, and when your sense of self2:42 gets attacked and your motivation and your motives get attacked or impugned, it hurts. And it does. And that's just a fact. So anyway, there's 2 kinds of pride the way I see it. The2:54 1 that we think about all the time are what I call an act of commission. So in business, you have acts of omission where you forget to do something and acts of commission3:06 where you do something. And when you think of like insurance, you get errors and emissions insurance, which means that if you make an error in professional judgment, you commit an error by doing3:17 something that's wrong. You make a mistake. Your insurance covers you against that. If you forget to do something that you were supposed to do, an act of omission, well, that is also something your e and o3:29 or your malpractice insurance would cover. And so I kinda look at this issue of pride through that lens. And so I see the pride of commission, what I call a grab for glory. And your motivation is to do something because3:41 you wanna be noticed. You wanna get the credit. You wanna be recognized. You want to be elevated. You wanna see your name in lights. You wanna be at the top of the leader board. You wanna win the trophy or3:53 the award. And I think anybody who's competitive struggles with this desire to just beat the other person. And if you really dig deep inside what is motivating you there,4:05 I think what you're gonna find is it's covetousness or envy, which is obviously something from the great commandments going forward that we need to be very careful of. To beat somebody just to beat4:17 them. To take something from someone else just to have it. To prove that you're the best just for the sake of being the best and grabbing the glory for yourself. These, I think,4:29 are things that can really quickly devolve into a form of pride that is antithetical to the humility that I believe God calls us to. You4:40 know, humble yourself in the side of the Lord and he shall lift you up. It's better to sit in the back and be called up to the front than to sit in the front and assume and then be sent back to the back. That's something4:51 Solomon wrote in in Proverbs. And, of course, a deeper sin there is that you take on glory for yourself that was really intended for God. If we're a vessel of God, if we are being used of God, if everything that5:03 we do comes from God and serves God, then anything good that we do, really, the glory belongs to the Lord. And I think as Christians, we know that. But in business, in our5:15 daily lives, in our competitive nature, sometimes it's easy to forget. So we have to be careful about that. So Philippians chapter 2 verse 3 says, let nothing be done5:27 through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind, let each esteem others better than himself. Well, I I know that that's a5:39 challenge. Right? If you go into a negotiation, let's say, and you believe the other person is a better negotiator than you, that's not a very good framework to come from. Right? If you go into an athletic competition5:50 and you believe that the person you're competing against is better than you, you're defeated before you begin. If you go into the marketplace building your company and you wanna provide a great service and you wanna6:02 out hustle the other person and raise the standard and win the business, it's very difficult to go in with the attitude that other people are better than you. So what I try to think about is that what I'm6:14 trying to do is respect someone else's abilities, respect someone else's capabilities, and understand that I'm not perfect and6:26 they're not perfect. And I can probably learn some things from them, And I certainly don't wanna underestimate them in any form of competition. And then I remember the purpose of the competition6:38 isn't to elevate myself, but to elevate the standard of practice in whatever business I'm doing. If I'm doing a great job in a competitive system like capitalism,6:50 then that means the other people on the field, other people in the business, other people in the space are gonna have to up their game too, which is gonna force me to up my game, and it becomes7:02 this process by which iron sharpens iron, and we make each other better. And so to me, that's healthy competition because it benefits the marketplace. It allows each7:14 person who's competing to really be competing against themselves. How much productivity, how much quality can I extract from my god given abilities, my god given7:25 circumstances? What can I do to be better? And then how can I make the people around me better for their benefit? Right? If if we're both succeeding, I'm coming from an abundance mentality. Hey. If we're7:37 creating value instead of exchanging value, in other words, if I'm not trying to take from you so that I have and then you don't have, but if I'm creating abundance and you're creating abundance, and I use the7:48 metaphorical potluck all the time. If you go to a potluck and everybody is practicing their cooking craft at the highest possible level, if they're creating great food and a large quantities of8:00 an abundance and you bring that to the potluck, then everybody who attends that potluck is going to have plenty to eat, and it's gonna be great quality. Well, that's a marketplace. And when you as a capitalist go out8:11 there and do a great job, you raise the standard and other people who are competing, if they're competing not for pride, but just to compete for placement or resources or access or market8:23 share, then everybody's going to do better. So that's what I call healthy competition. Pride is when you're doing it just to defeat the other person. When you're doing it just to win the prize so that you get to stand on8:35 the top of the hill, thump your chest, say I'm number 1, and brag. That I think as a Christian, at least for me, is a dangerous place. But the 2nd form of pride8:46 is 1, I'll say for me personally, I struggle with a lot more. I I don't tend to be a kind of person that wants to attract attention to myself. In fact, I'm just the opposite and I know people look at me8:58 and the things that I do with my life and they're like, really? I mean, seems like you're on stage, you're on microphone, you're on camera quite a bit. Like, you don't seem like a very shy person but I really am. YouTrusting God Over Pride 9:09 know, I I do it because I'm so compelled to do it and communicate to people the things that I think can add value. I overcome my shyness. I overcome my, you know, I'm not gonna call9:21 it humility because I'm about to get into what I think it really is, and it's just a different form of pride. And so for me to overcome my pride, I have to push myself out into the9:33 marketplace. Some people have to take the lower seat. I have to actually put myself in a situation where I have a chance for my light to shine. You know, Jesus says, let your light so shine before men that they can see9:44 your heavenly father and give him glory. Right? If God gives you gifts, if he gives you circumstances, he gives you an opportunity. He gives you a passion to do something that's good for the world, you know, and you9:56 don't do it. You've cheated the world out of the gift that God gave the world through you. You are a gift, and the talents and opportunities that God gives you is a gift. And if you don't use10:08 your gift, if you don't share your gift, you're cheating the world out of the gift that you are and the gift that God wants to give in and through you. And I know that sometimes hard to think of when we look at10:20 ourselves compared to other people, especially in the day and age of social media where everybody's out there putting their best foot forward, and you're like, oh my gosh. Everybody's so amazing. Everybody's so10:28 brilliant. Everybody's doing so well, and I'm just a schmo. I'm just I suck. You know? There's a lot of that, especially these teenagers who don't have a chance to figure out who they are and really understand who God is10:39 and who they are in God and that God made them unique and gave them tremendous opportunities, and he didn't create them for no purpose. He created them for a purpose, and if he did create them for a purpose, he'll equip10:49 them for that purpose. And if he equips them for that purpose, then they go about that purpose. They're gonna find their place in the world. Well, when you get to be a little bit older, you realize you have everything10:58 kind of works out for most people, but when you're young, you don't know that. When you're young, you're very insecure, and you're very uncertain how you fit in, and that can manifest in very unhealthy competition. This11:10 amazing drive to be better than everybody else and knock everybody down. And I was a little bit like that when I was a young man. And then after the world knocks you down a little bit because there's other people out11:21 there trying to do the same thing, you get humbled and then you begin to get into this balanced place. But for me, the 2nd area of pride so the 1st area of pride is pride of commission. It's a glory grab. It's it's11:32 attracting attention to yourself and wanting to get credit for yourself. And I think that that is dangerous for all the reasons I just talked about. But the 2nd 1 to me is a little bit more insidious, and I11:44 think a lot of talented people or potentially talented people hide their talent, bury it, and we know how the in the parable of the talents, how the Lord felt about that with what I call false humility. And11:56 it's the idea of like, you know, I'm not really the 1. There's gotta be somebody else. Everybody else is better than me. I'm not adequate. But you know, is that true? You know, I don't think that's true because I think12:07 you diminish who God is and what God created in you and and gave you the ability to do. And so I think if you are really gonna do some soul searching and I have in this particular12:19 area, I think you'll find as I have found that the real driver is pride and it's wanting to hide from the risk of failure. You don't want to go out on the field and12:31 be test live in a delusion that, yeah, if I12:43 really tried I could. But I'm not gonna give it my all because I don't wanna really find out that maybe my all isn't good enough. And I think that holds way more people back. I think that12:55 fall is a failure before you've even tried is worse than trying and actually falling. At least if you go out there and try in my experience and you fail, you get a lesson.13:07 And then you can take that feedback as my friend Tom Hopkins taught me as the information you need to adjust what you're doing to perfect your technique, to seek13:19 out mentors and coaches, and to learn how to do whatever it is you're trying to do better to ask for help. But when you have the other kind of pride, the false humility, now13:31 you don't get that feedback. You don't know what you need to work on. You don't know where you're falling short. You're not being stressed. And because you're not being stressed you're not growing stronger, and13:42 because you're unwilling to ask for help because you don't wanna be exposed as needing help, then you don't grow. And if you've been put here to be fruitful and multiply, if you've13:54 been put here to grow and then you take yourself out of growth mode and stay clearly in your comfort zone because you don't want to appear to be foolish, you don't wanna be found out to be14:06 inadequate, You don't want anybody to see that you're merely human. To me and this is me talking to me and this is my own experience and I struggle way more with this than I14:18 do with the idea of grabbing for the glory. It's really a form of pride in the form of false humility. So I I take a lot of comfort from Moses and I relate a lot to14:30 Moses in my life. And, you know, I wish there were other bible heroes. I mean, not that Moses was a bad guy. Moses obviously overcame a lot, but he was born into privilege. He got a14:42 passion to set the children of Israel free. He attacked the Egyptian harassing a Hebrew, buried him in the sand, tried to cover up his crime, then realized that, you know, he'd gotten ahead14:54 of God and God's plan, and he ended up exiled in the wilderness for 40 years and with a mega dose of humility. Well, on the back end of that 40 years, now he's 80 years old and he finds himself at the burning bush and15:05 God's calling him to lead the people to freedom. And he's like, yeah, Lord. I don't think I'm the guy. I don't I don't think so. I don't I can't talk. I'm too old. I failed. I had my my passion15:17 isn't there anymore. I just I don't wanna fail again. And God was very encouraging of Moses. He said, I'll be with you. I'll put the words in your mouth. I'll help you. I'll go before you. And ultimately,15:30 God was very encouraging to him until Moses refused. And then if you look at the scripture in Exodus 4, God's wrath burned hot against Moses when he refused. And so God doesn't like pride.15:42 And so the pride was I don't wanna fail again. I can't do it. I I tried it once and I failed. It didn't end well and I don't wanna do it again. And so God, I think, wants15:54 us to be willing to step up and to step out again. At least my experience. Again, I'm I'm never here on these muses to tell you what God is saying to you. I'm sharing with you the things that God says to me in the hopes16:05 that you will seek him in his word by his holy spirit and he will speak to you. But I think the common root of either form of pride is a failure really to trust God. In other words, if you go about your business and the16:16 old adage is is it's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets credit. So if you just go out there and do your very best to try to advance whatever the mission that you've been assigned to do is and, of16:28 course, advancing God's purpose and you don't care who gets credit, maybe you can come alongside other people and help them. And, yeah, they get the glory but the job gets done. Right? That's humility16:39 even though you're very much in the game. The other form of it is that you don't trust God that if you step up and step out and something goes sideways that it'll be okay. So you decide, well, I'm not gonna take that16:51 risk and I'm going to withdraw my effort. And so I as you know, if you listen to me, I I define trust as different than faith. To me, trust is faith in action. James says that even the17:03 demons believe and tremble. So faith without works is dead. In other words, if you have faith and you believe that's interesting, but until you're willing to act on that faith, do you really trust? And so when17:15 you're struggling with this matter of pride, whether it's, hey, if I step up and go out and do something, I need to get credit for it. I'm afraid that I will not be rewarded unless I claim credit,17:27 unless I draw attention to myself, unless I I scream from the rooftop. Hey. Notice me. Recognize me. Praise me. You're not trusting God that God will recognize you what you do in secret.Check Your Motives and Step Out 17:38 Right? The Jesus talks about give your alms in secret, and then your father who sees in secret will recognize you openly as opposed to the people who want to do and make a big to do about it. Hey, notice17:50 me. I'm a charitable person. I'm doing all this good work. Right? So the principles I think are very clear in scripture. So you know, James 2 19, I just referenced that you believe that there is 1 god. You do well but18:01 even the demons believe and tremble, but what they don't do is trust God. They believe in God. They just don't trust him. So the effort or the answer18:14 is to actually act on what you believe. In Proverbs 3 5 6, very very famous scripture. I've got a little coffee coaster on my desk that has the scripture that reminds me of it all the time and it18:25 says, Proverbs 3 5 and 6 says, trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him and he18:37 shall direct your paths. And of course, we know in Romans 8 28 that all things work together for them that love God and are called according to his purposes. And of course, when we18:48 receive that call, we have to act on that call. It's not enough to feel the call, to think about the call, to dream about the call, to believe that someday, some way, but actually to get19:00 moving. And the way you get moving is to trust God that he'll give you enough light. He'll give you enough direction to get through that day. Sufficient is for the day is its own19:12 troubles, Jesus said. Right? Don't worry about too far into the future. As a visionary, I think all the time I try to think 10, 15 moves ahead. Problem is now I'm trying to solve problems that aren't in front19:24 of me yet and they distract me from giving my best effort to the task at hand. So again, Proverbs 3 5 and 6, trust in the Lord with all your heart, your desires, your emotions, your19:36 hopes, your dreams. It's emotional. Emotion creates motion. And God says to keep your heart with all diligence for out of it spring the issues of life.19:47 That's Proverbs 4 23. And so your heart really matters. Your passion matters. Your desire matters. If you desire glory, that's gonna be a problem. If you desire safety, that's gonna be19:59 a problem. What you have to desire in my opinion and this is how I do my best to live my life right now is I have to desire to do God's will. I have to want to do the mission he called20:11 me to do. The scripture says that he created us for good works in Christ Jesus, which he prepared beforehand that we might walk in them. I wanna find those good works. I wanna do those good works. I wanna fulfill20:23 all that God put in my heart to do and all that he's created me to do. That's what I wanna do. I wanna be used of God exactly as he intended. I don't need to be like anybody else. I don't need to20:35 compete with anybody else but I also can't hide and sit and not step out and do what I'm called to do and that's where it takes faith in action. Do I trust him? Trust in the20:46 lord with all your heart even if you don't understand. Lean not on your own understanding but in everything you do acknowledge him. Be aware of his presence. Follow his principles. Do your best to do his20:58 will the way he's explained it to you and when you do that, the promises he shall direct your paths. Obviously, I pray that he will do that in my life. I pray that he will do it in your life. And21:10 so I encourage you to continue to check your motives because God is. Ask him to reveal to you if there's any wicked way inside you anything that would either steal his21:22 glory or keep you from doing his work. Because I think on either side of those equations is pride and pride is ultimately rooted, in my opinion, in an21:34 unhealthy fear. It's not a fear of the Lord. It's a fear of consequences and that you won't get what you deserve or that you will get what you deserve. Right? Either 1 is bad.21:45 All I want is what God wants me to have and from my experience, what God wants me to have is way better than what I deserve and probably way better21:57 than what I could achieve on my own. So I pray that this encourages you. May you be blessed to be a blessing. Let me know what you think. Send me an email. Feedback at russell gray dot com and let me know how this22:09 ministers to you. We'll see you next time.In this video 0:00 Pride of Commission: The Grab for Glory2:31 Pride of Omission: False Humility9:05 Trusting God Over Pride17:33 Check Your Motives and Step Out
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