When pride compliment covetousness

For the wicked boasteth of his heart's desire, and blesseth the covetous, whom the LORD abhorreth. The wicked, through the pride of his countenance, will not seek after God: God is not in all his thoughts. (Psa 10:3-4)

This verse is clear in describing the proud as being wicked. To be wicked also means being evil or having morals that are bad in principle or practice. Truly wickedness is conceived inside and out of that rottenness comes forth boasting and covetousness, eventually to the point of denying God. To deny God is to say that God doesn’t exist and self has been proclaimed as god. Psalms 14:1 describes the god-less fool as corrupt and does nothing good. Mathematically this makes sense because evil inside equals to evil practices. If self have taken the place of God, then the direction of worship or worth-ship is on self and not to the Almighty Creator of Heaven and earth. High estimation of self becomes pride. God will resist such a person (James 4:6), conversely gives grace to the humble.

And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry. (Luke 12:18-19)

Jesus warns us about covetousness and it appears that the covetous thinks highly of self for it’s all about ‘my’. Humble people put others into their consideration. Building up self is the main concern and God is out of the picture totally. The same situation as in Psalms 14:1 when God declares such one as fool. What a terrible judgment, losing not just dreams on earth but eternally loosing everything.

We can be quick to put a wealthy person into this mold. Consider that a 'rich' person can be abounding in natural resources or gifting or even experiences (one that claim to have eaten more salt than others have eaten rice). We have heard of the wealthy despising the poor (James 2:6) similarly people who are consider themselves more ‘superior’ than others in talent and gifts who don’t have things in Godly perspective tend to despise others too.

If ye fulfil the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself, ye do well: (Jas 2:8)

God looks for obedience, Samuel told Saul that all the sacrifices is not what God is looking for (1 Sam 15:22, 23), for disobedience is viewed as rebellion and it is as the sin of witchcraft. The penalty for witchcraft is death. Paul reminds that that there is such a thing as obedience unto righteousness (Rom 6:16 – here is one for the antinomians from Paul, the preacher of grace). Therefore the righteous subjects of the Kingdom of God have a very important law to obey. As far back as Lev 19:18, the Lord said that we shall love our neighbor as ourselves. The command ends with ‘I am the LORD’, meaning we better take heed to this commandment because He is LORD. Love is the more excellent way (1 Cor 12:31), Paul said that even if we do anything or sacrifice everything, without love we are nothing. Obeying the royal law is then what we should do.

The opposite of pride is meekness and the blessing for meekness is inheriting the earth (not the world). Probably the most powerful prophet who would have a lot to boast about including his close communion with God (even speaking face to face, Duet 34:10)) was the meekest man on the earth (Num 12:3). Living in that stature of meekness, there isn’t any reason for covetousness in a righteous child of God.