“I am still jealous of that man, and I do not know how to overcome it.”
“Well,” he said, “if a man comes into your store to buy goods, and you cannot supply him, just send him over to your neighbor.”
He said he wouldn’t like to do that.
“Well,” the minister said, “you do it and you will kill jealousy.”
He said he would, and when a customer came into his store for goods which he did not have, he would tell him to go across the street to his neighbor’s. By and by the other began to send his customers over to this man’s store, and the breach was healed.
Pride.
Then there is pride. This is another of those sins which the Bible so strongly condemns, but which the world hardly reckons as a sin at all. “An high look and a proud heart is sin.” “Everyone that is proud in heart is an abomination to the Lord; though hand join in hand, he shall not be unpunished.” Christ included pride among those evil things which, proceeding out of the heart of a man, defile him.
People have an idea that it is just the wealthy who are proud. But go down on some of the back streets, and you will find that some of the very poorest are as proud as the richest. It is the heart, you know. People that haven’t any money are just as proud as those that have. We have got to crush it out. It is an enemy. You needn’t be proud of your face, for there is not one but that after ten days in the grave the worms would be eating your body. There is nothing to be proud of—is there? Let us ask God to deliver us from pride.
You can’t fold your arms and say, “Lord, take it out of me”; but just go and work with Him.
Mortify your pride by cultivating humility. “Put on, therefore,” says Paul, “as the elect of God, holy and beloved, . . . humbleness of mind.” “Be clothed with humility,” says Peter. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.”