Why is self exaltation sinful for us, but not for God?
Ok I'm going to try to answer this in two parts.
1. There aren't enough resources to go around in this world.
It may seem like a strage place to start, but you can't understand the problem of pride unless you understand it's effects. I don't think there is anything the bible talks about more than our need to take care of the poor, the needy, and the powerless. We can't do that when I become full of how amazing I am, as everyone who thinks that they are "special" thinks that they are deserving of more than someone else... When I exalt myself, there is a reaction: a give and take. When I my pride causes me to think I deserve two of something, someone goes without.
God obviously doesn't affect this.
2. God doesn't exalt himself that much.
I know that some versions of Christianity view the centrality of God's character around his glory, but let's not assume that premise quite yet. Let's look at one of the main scriptures that say that we should not exalt ourselves:
Philipians 2:1-8 says:
"Agree with each other, love each other, be deep-spirited friends. Don't push your way to the front; don't sweet-talk your way to the top. Put yourself aside, and help others get ahead. Don't be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand.
Think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of himself. He had equal status with God but didn't think so much of himself that he had to cling to the advantages of that status no matter what. Not at all. When the time came, he set aside the privileges of deity and took on the status of a servant! Having become human, he stayed human. It was an incredibly humbling process. He didn't claim special privileges. Instead, he lived a selfless, obedient life."
These verses say that we should be likewise servants (footwashers, toilet cleaners, homeless-huggers, lovers-of-dirty-prostitutes... in short, unexalted people willing to get dirty and join others in their stinky human defeats) because...
...drum roll...
because that's how God is.
God is a servant; that's what God is like. He doesn't choose the road of self-exaltation, but the road toward serving.
If God had wanted to exalt himself, he wouldn't have entered human skin and weakness. He wouldn't have decided to suffer with his people, to join them in their fate. He wouldn't have been born to a family who was radically poor. He wouldn't have been born to a family that will become refugees, illegal alliens. He wouldn't have lived the tragic life of a man named Jesus. And he certainly wouldn't have been killed naked on a pole lifted into the air, screaming...
Will someday God be exalted? Yes, absolutely.
But it is not God alone that will be revealed for what He is. Mankind shall be revealed too: there will come a day when he will return, with great rejoicing as a new capital city descending upon the earth. And God himself, ruling the world in righteousness, will put to right all that has gone wrong.
He shall exalt the oppressed and downtrodden and bringing low all who were oppressors. He will lift the poor from their poverty, and returning to life those who had been unjustly murdered by oppressive rulers. He will exalt those who have been a force for good in this world because they did not think they deserved better than anyone (and thus shared with the poor and needy), and He shall bring low those who thought of themselves as deserving a second helping while their neighbor's stomach went empty.
