PRIDE:
PASTORAL; HOLY SPIRIT: NEED FOR

The Biblical teaching that God’s work through the church can be accomplished only by the energizing of the Holy Spirit is very hard for us humans to accept. It is a fact that frustrates our carnal desire for honor and praise, for glory and recognition.…

Even though God faithfully reminds us that a ministry of the Holy Spirit is to hide the Christian worker in the work, the true humility He seeks among us is still too often the exception and not the rule. We might as well confess that many have been converted to Christ and have come into the church without renouncing that human desire for honor and praise. As a result, some have actually spent lifetimes in religious work doing little more than getting glory for themselves.

But the glory can belong only to God. If we take the glory, God is being frustrated in the church.

Zechariah 4:6; 1 Corinthians 3:5–9; 1 Corinthians 3:12–14

Tragedy in the Church: The Missing Gifts, 1, 2.