Search me, O God, and know my heart, try me and know my thoughts.Give me wisdom enough to see myself, humility to accept what you reveal to me, and the discontent to remain distanced from You. Amen.

“Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way husbands should love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself. 

For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it, just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. “Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.” This mystery is profound, and I am saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

‭‭Ephesians‬ ‭5:15-33‬ ‭ESV‬‬

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Look back through this passage and search out every time we are guided to a stance of submission. Re-read what Paul is saying (the Holy Spirit speaking through him) and examine the points of self-referential checks and balances. We are told to:

Look at your walk / make the best use of our time / understand the Lord’s will / how to be filled / what that filling should result in / a submission to praising God / to Christ / to one another out of reverence for Christ / wives to husbands / husbands for wives / to Christ again / as an individual and as the church / to God’s nourishing / to the covenant of marriage / to our covenant with Christ / and once again unto our spouses

All these calls, in such a short time, to check our hearts, our fears, our concerns, our pride, yes our pride, and hand them all over to Christ. If we are going to honor God with our lives, if we want to have the slightest hope of blessing others in the Name of Christ, then we must be willing to echo the heart and body of Christ and pursue the death of self for the sake of others. This is the life of a cross-bearer. We know that our pride and selfish behavior must be radically excised from our person so that we might submit ourselves to God in Christ Jesus. 

We cannot find the strength to see pride undone in our heart. That comes throug faith in Christ and a radical, complete, costly obedience to Him. We cannot hold on to a spider’s web thread of our old life. Instead, looking toward what is ahead, and leaving what is behind, we press on toward the goal that leads us heavenward in Christ Jesus. 

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.

Only let us hold true to what we have attained. Brothers, join in imitating me, and keep your eyes on those who walk according to the example you have in us. For many, of whom I have often told you and now tell you even with tears, walk as enemies of the cross of Christ. Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and they glory in their shame, with minds set on earthly things.

But our citizenship is in heaven, and from it we await a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself.”

‭‭Philippians‬ ‭3:12-21‬ ‭ESV‬‬

Submission to God, and a submitting of our life to others will always serve as a wonderful tool for killing pride in us. But we must first be willing to die. It is in dying to old self, and in the putting on of Christ, that we find the cure for this core sin of pride. When our knees are bent and our head is bowed, we cannot stand up for the desires of the flesh at work in us. Submission and prayer go hand in hand, and will guide us in the rhythms of grace and the footsteps of Christ.