Don’t pride yourself or stroke your ego before your neighbor

Don’t pride yourself or stroke your ego before your neighbor

⁵ All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. ⁶ Humble yourselves under God’s mighty hand, that He may lift you up in due time. 1 PETER 5

³¹ If [the humble] is honored while he is poor, think how much more he will be honored when he becomes rich! If someone is despised while he is rich, think how much more he will be despised when becomes poor! SIRACH 10

¹⁸ The Creator never intended for human beings to be arrogant and violent. SIRACH 10

²⁹ I have heard how proud, arrogant, and conceited the people are, how much they think of themselves. ³⁰ I, the Lord, know of their arrogance. Their boasts amount to nothing and the things they do will not last. JEREMIAH 48 tev

¹³ Now, listen, you who say “Today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city; spend a year there; do business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live to do this or that.” ¹⁶ As it is, you are so self-assured and boastful, which is evil. JAMES 4

⁷ What are you so puffed up about? What do you have that God hasn’t given you? And if all you have is from God, why act as though you are so great, and as though you have accomplished something on your own? 1 CORINTHIANS 4 tlb 

⁷ Neither he who plants nor he who waters [the plant] is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. 1 CORINTHIANS 3

³ If anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he deceives himself. GALATIANS 6

² Let someone else praise you, not your own mouth—a stranger, not your own lips. PROVERBS 27 nlt  

²⁷ It is not honorable to seek one’s own honor. PROVERBS 25

¹⁷ Be very humble, because the decay of death awaits us all. SIRACH 7

⁹ We are only dust and ashes; what have we got to be proud of? Our body decays even while we are alive. SIRACH 10

Why boast? Boasting is ill-mannered and offensive. It is an indirect way of telling your neighbors to their faces Envy me! It misappropriates the glory and honor that belong to God.

⁴ Love… does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude [ill-mannered], it is not self-seeking. 1 CORINTHIANS 13

¹⁶ You brag and boast. All such boasting is evil. JAMES 4

Yet there is a kind of boasting that is not sinful. It is delightful to God and edifying.

²³ Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom, or the strong man boast of his strength, or the rich man boast of his riches; ²⁴ but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight. JEREMIAH 9

¹⁴ As for me, God forbid that I [Paul] should boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Messiah Y’shua. GALATIANS 6 tlb

¹² Now, this is our boast: Our conscience testifies that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and especially in our relations with you, in the holiness and sincerity that are of God. 2 CORINTHIANS 1 

¹⁶ Your chief pride [boast] should be your fear of the Lord. SIRACH 9

Be humble and gentle but not to the point of losing your self-respect. If someone compliments you, don’t dismiss it by saying, “It’s nothing!” That would be dishonest. Acknowledge what you have accomplished and say, “Thank you! I am glad you appreciate it. Praise be to God, for without Him we can do nothing.”

You need to have self-respect to be able to give respect to others.

²⁸ Son, keep your self-respect, but remain modest. Value yourself at your true worth. ²⁹ There is no excuse for a person to run himself down. No one respects a person who has no respect for himself. SIRACH 10

²¹ Humility deserves honor and respect, but a low opinion of yourself leads to sin. ²² Do not let others have their way at your expense; do not bring your own ruin by giving up your rights. SIRACH 4

To edify, speak with patience and empathy.

Patience is dealing with a pestering, irritating or painful situation in a positive way. It is the ability to tolerate hurt, provocation, or annoyance without complaint or loss of temper. It keeps you from being provoked when given the dirty finger, or from barking “Stay away from me!” when a dirty beggar touches you for attention.

² Be patient, bearing with one another in love. EPHESIANS 4

¹⁴ Help the weak, be patient with everyone. 1 THESSALONIANS 5

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. ⁵ …It is not easily angered [not irritable], it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 1 CORINTHIANS 13

Empathy is “the ability to identify with and understand another person’s feelings or difficulties” (Encarta). It helps you say calmly and sincerely: “Yes, what was done is wrong. But we all make mistakes as we go through difficulties. We will pray for you, that God may enlighten and forgive you. Let us learn our lesson from this incident and move on. There’s no sense in committing the same mistake twice.”

¹² Words from a wise man’s mouth are gracious. ECCLESIASTES 10