The following message is by pastor John Piper. More information from desiring God is available at

W. W.

D. desiring God. O.R.G. Let me begin with a story that came to me on the bridge on the way over.

When I went to Bethel in 1974, I was 28 years old and I had just finished graduate school and

was a teacher of Bible and Greek and loved it.

Loved all six years of it and wanted to write

and began to write and got my dissertation published that felt real good and got a couple of

articles accepted and there came a time about a year or two into that passion that I began to really worry about pride.

Why am I doing this? Why do I want to publish? Why do I want to write so bad? Is it all just to see my name on a book or in a journal article.

And I was so exercised about it because the Lord hates pride.

Now, you understand that pride is a complex thing. It's a

pride in the form of the week is usually in terms of cravings for what they don't have,

craving for attention.

And pride in the strong is in the form of boasting for what they do have and what they've done.

So don't think that you're free from pride if you're a weak nobody who doesn't have anything

to brag about.

You're just as victimized by pride as a weak nobody as a big

somebody. They're just different forms of what the ego longs for. Either you have something

to brag about and get the strokes that way, or you don't have

something to brag about, but you crave it like crazy and sometimes you become a second-hander

and you begin to adapt your personality to get people like what you do and you can become a

real lowly servant or whatever.

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