Pride is to forget that all we have is from God.

Three tests to identify pride:

The test of precedence – How do we react when somebody else is promoted ahead of us?

The test of sincerity – How do we react when others actually see the same failures in us that we see ourselves?

The test of criticism – Does criticism make us defensive? Do we respond back with criticizing the critic?

When the world revolves around ME.

A test of egotism – How do you do when listening to someone of equal standing as yourself be praised?

Being suspicious of rivals. Instead of rejoicing with more people joining the work, you become suspicious of them stealing your place.

When people’s esteem for you turns into adulation.

"Leaders must work to attach the people’s affection to Jesus."

Quote from Spurgeon:

"Success exposes a man to the pressure of people and thus tempts him to hold on to his gains by means of fleshly methods and practices, and to let himself be ruled wholly by the dictatorial demands of incessant expansion. Success can go to my head, and will unless I remember that it is God who accomplished the work, that He can continue to do so without any help, and that He will be able to make out with other means whenever He cuts me down to size."

I think this is something that can come from insecurity, a fear of others finding out that I may actually be a flawed, fallible, human being. It also can come from an incredible, terrible amount of pride, where a person actually thinks they are infallible.

Don’t be afraid to admit that you can make mistakes.

Being spiritual doesn’t mean you’re unable to make wrong decisions.

Good illustration of a man in his nineties, clinging to his position as Sunday School superintendent.

"One unfortunate consequence is that young people who have energy to fill a role are held up and stagnate."

DANGER: "Sometimes sincere and well-meaning followers encourage the notion of indispensability, which feeds a leader’s ego and makes him even less objective about performance in office." In other words, don’t make me feel I’m indispensable! I’m not!

It’s important that we learn balance in our emotions.

Many useful people fall victim to depression.

Spurgeon quote:

"Before any great achievement, some measure of depression is very usual… Such was my experience when I first became a pastor in London. My success appalled me, and the thought of the career which seemed to open up so far from elating me, cast me into the lowest depth, out of which I muttered my misere and found no room for a gloria in excelsis. Who was I that I should continue to lead so great a multitude? I would betake me to my village obscurity, or emigrate to America and find a solitary nest in the backwoods where I might be sufficient for the things that were demanded of me. It was just then the curtain was rising on my lifework, and I dreaded what it might reveal. I hope I was not faithless, but I was timorous and filled with a sense of my own unfitness … This depression comes over me whenever the Lord is preparing a larger blessing for my ministry."

Robert Murray McCheyne’s example during times of success – kneeling down and symbolically placing the crown of success on the brow of the Lord, to whom it rightly belonged.

Samuel Chadwick: "If successful, don’t crow; if defeated, don’t croak."

According to the definitions he gives for this section, the "prophet" is the one who speaks for God at all costs, even when it’s not popular. The "leader" is one who may at times compromise what’s right for the sake of keeping his following.

Sometimes we need to be willing to do the unpopular thing and follow after God’s leading rather than trying to do what is pleasing the crowd.