January 7, 2026 Devo

Sometimes we are our own worst enemies. In a high school football game this year between two top rivals, one player’s arrogance got the best of him. It was a big game, and the stands were packed. Scouts were there from colleges to take a look at the top players on both teams. As the teams met at midfield just before the start of the game, a player from one of the teams decided to bounce up and down and pound his chest. He crossed the line onto the side of the opposing team and shoved a player and staff member from that school. An official threw a flag and called a penalty on that player before the game ever started. Though he intended to fire up his own team with the antics, it had the opposite effect. That penalty set the tone of the game and fired up the opposing team, who ended up crushing the arrogant player’s team 51 to 13. In this case, pride didn’t just go before the fall; it set off a BEAT DOWN!
Pride is a dangerous attribute. It can ruin the best of us. Just ask the people of Israel. Isaiah points out in Chapter 2 how caught up they had become in their own success. Their land was full of silver and gold. They had a strong army. They believed so much in themselves that they forgot that it was God who had gotten them to where they were. So they started worshipping the popular gods around them and creating their own. Their pride was a cancer that distorted their thinking, hardened their hearts, and darkened their souls. They were captured by an enemy within them that left them vulnerable to the enemies around them.
Sit with that thought for a good while today. I’m going to tell you from experience that pride is probably the biggest enemy of our marriages. It’s the greatest cause of the separation of friends and the division in churches. Pride not only causes us to go down paths we should never be on, but it also causes us to deny that those paths are destructive. Pride keeps us from admitting our faults, making amends for our wrongs, and confessing our sins. Pride subtly and quietly sets us up as enemies of God, as our prayers become, “MY kingdom come, MY will be done!”
Read our verse again for today. “Human pride will be brought down, and human arrogance will be humbled.” Ask God to reveal how pride might be making its way into your life and relationships. Ask Him to keep your heart humble, yielded, and pliable before Him. Learn the lesson that the Israelites failed to learn. Kill the pride before your pride kills YOU! That’s God’s Word for you today.