* Fault-picking in thought or word over the ministries of fellow Evangelicals.

* Resentment over the 'success' in ministry of fellow Evangelicals.

* A sense that one could do better than fellow Evangelicals in their ministries, reflected in a feeling of frustrated ambition.

* A sense that one's own ministry is not properly appreciated by fellow Evangelicals.

* Inner gloating over set-backs in ministry for fellow Evangelicals.

* Exaggerating numerical growth in one's own church in front of fellow Evangelicals.

* Boasting about the 'success' of ministry initiatives in the context of prayer requests or sharing the 'problems' of success (or even in neither of those contexts - just boasting).

The only cure is to realise one's own spiritual and moral bankruptcy before God and to cast oneself on the grace and mercy of God at the foot of the Cross of Christ. A pride problem in the Corinthian church is the context for Paul's vital corrective:

And I, when I came among you, brothers, did not come proclaiming the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling (1 Corinthians 2v1-3 - ESV).

That corrective of the Cross is reflected in Isaac Watts' classic hymn:

When I survey the wondrous Cross On which the Prince of glory died, My richest gain I count but loss, And pour contempt on all my pride.

END