“Resolved, if I take delight in it as a gratification of pride or vanity or any such account, immediately to throw it by” (Resolution 12).
Edwards was a man that guarded his heart and mind in order to love God and glorify Him rather than do anything for himself apart from the glory of God. He saw the incredible danger of pride and vanity and saw that whatever came from that had to be done away with. “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate” (Prov 8:13). While God is a God of love, He does hate pride. Pride is the swelling up of self and all that is done from pride is done from a narrow and selfish love for self. One cannot do anything for the glory of God and do it from pride at the same time. God is opposed to the proud in the sense that He stands against them in battle alignment (James 4:6). God fights the proud and will bring them down. Edwards saw that pride was such an enemy of God that he knew that if he did something out of pride it was not to the glory of God and as such his heart would be hardened by whatever it was that he took pleasure in. So he determined to examine his heart to be sure that what he did or obtained was not to gratify his pride and vanity. He resolved to keep such a watch on his heart that he would watch his heart closely for a delight in something that sprang from pride. This is recognition of the state and danger of the human heart.
“For You are not a God who takes pleasure in wickedness; No evil dwells with You. 5 The boastful shall not stand before Your eyes; You hate all who do iniquity” (Psa 5:4-5). This text should focus our attention as it did Edwards. God takes no pleasure in wickedness, yet we are to do all for His pleasure since He does all for His own glory and pleasure (Psa 115:1-3). Man is to seek to try to please God and clearly God takes no pleasure in pride. No evil dwells with God and pride is evil. So for those who desire to dwell with God, they must beware of pride in all instances. If a person wishes to stand before God, that person must realize that the boastful (form of pride) will not stand before Him. The text even says that God hates all who do iniquity and we know that all that has pride cannot be anything but iniquity.
“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before stumbling” (Prov 16:18). Here we see that pride precedes destruction and the haughty spirit precedes stumbling. In other words, when we see that this verse goes along with God fighting the proud, we see why the proud are destroyed and the haughty stumble. God is able to humble the proud and He will do it. A man or woman that knows that God fights the proud and brings destruction upon them is the person that realizes how much God hates pride and learns to hate it too. So when we look in our hearts and know that what we have done or obtained has been from pride, what is the proper response of the person that realizes that God hates pride and that I should also? It is to cast away whatever was obtained by pride in order to please God. No matter how much I desire something and am gratified by it, if I desire it or obtain it because of pride then I am fighting God and have or desire something that God will hate because of my pride. The safest course of action is to cast the thing away, even with detestation.
Human beings are by nature proud and selfish. If God has not broken and humbled a person’s heart, then all that the proud person does is sin and nothing but sin. Even the outward righteous acts of the unhumbled person is done from pride and so done out of an idolatrous heart. While man does not like this as it cuts into his self-righteous heart and tells man that his self-righteousness is as filthy rags, it does not negate the truth of the assertion. All acts, no matter how good they may be in appearance, when they are moved and motivated by pride come from an idolatrous heart and God judges even our best actions as less than worthless.
Can we say that Romans 1:25 does not teach us about religious man too? They “exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man” (Rom 1:23). “For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen” (Rom 1:25). All of these things people do in religion when the religion is not that set out by the Creator. People exchange the glory of God for an image, even an image of God that is unworthy of Him in the mind. People exchange the truth of who God is for a lie and so they worship and serve themselves. What if man’s religion and worship are moved from pride? Are not these things to be cast away as well? What if we find that our technological toys, houses, cars, preaching, worship, and traditions are moved by pride and vanity rather than the truth of God?
God Loves... Himself 
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