Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.

 Why do we need a new life with Jesus?

The simplistic answer is sin.

Sin is not just our willful disobedience of the LORD it is a simplistic way to describe the fallen brokenness of the world around us.  This fallen brokenness extends to all of our relationships.

Our relationship with the LORD is broken

Our relationship with ourselves is broken

Our relationship with others is broken

To understand how our relationship with ourselves is broken we have to go all the way back to the beginning again.  When Adam and Eve are in the garden not only was their relationship with the LORD perfect but their relationship within themself was perfect.  We understand this because pride and shame had not entered the world.

Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.  Pride causes us to believe we are above or better than others.  It also causes us to believe others should not have it as good as we do.  Pride is unhealthy competition and fuels our desire to win when there is nothing to truly win.  We see this when people disagree just to disagree or won’t admit when they are wrong or at fault.  Our prideful selfs love to point this out in others but the list of modern people guilty of pride is long and includes our own names.

Shame on the other hand is not guilt for sin but an uneasiness about our ownself.  Shame causes us to feel we are less than others.  When Adam and Eve felt shame about being naked nothing about them had actually changed.   Eve wasn’t ashamed of Adam and Adam wasn’t ashamed of Eve.  They were ashamed of themselves for being who they were created to be because their relationship with themselves was broken.

Shame is also what causes us to hide when we know we did wrong.  Adam and Eve hid from the LORD because they had disobeyed the LORD.  Instead of facing the truth and dealing with the consequences they hid trying to avoid what they deserved.

Pride and shame are the broken mirror version of self awareness.  The simplistic answer to how to fix this view is Jesus.  A more complex answer is what we will explore next week.