“You rebuke the arrogant, the cursed, who wander from Your commandments” (Psalm 119:21).
That cursed sin of pride that other people have. Ah, but we have not learned the truth about pride until we hate it in ourselves. We have not learned to hate sin as sin until we learn to hate it in ourselves because of its relation to God. It is easy to hate sin in other people, but it is also easy to excuse it in our own hearts. Our self-love and pride make it easy to dismiss our own sin because we always have good reasons for it. But those other people, why they never have good reasons for what they do. We always have good reasons to think highly of ourselves, but others never have good reasons to speak highly of themselves. Pride is that beast in our own hearts that blinds us to itself and to our sin or at least minimizes it, yet it always maximizes the sin of others unless it is good for our pride to overlook theirs. The heart that operates by pride rather than love for God can do all the good things in some external way while it hides the motives and intents by an inflating of self that blinds the sight.
In the last BLOG we looked at how Jesus dealt with the sin of murder in the heart in the Sermon on the Mount. We prefer the stance of the Pharisees which left the sin of murder at the level of physical murder. But Jesus went to the depths of the heart and shows us that we violate the First Commandment in the sin of murder as well. When we murder another, whether in physical murder or in the heart or by our words, we are choosing self rather than God. It is God who commands us to love our neighbor and yet we hate our neighbor. In our heart, then, we are choosing our own wicked desires rather than the holy commands of God. What people say in our day is that we simply choose what we want. It is nothing but a choice. However, our choices are from our hearts and they never choose anything but what is according their greatest desires. When we choose sin, that is a choice that shows that our desires are for self rather than God. When we choose sin, it shows that we trust in our own wisdom rather than God. When we choose sin, it shows a heart that desires to please itself rather than God.
It is arrogance to choose self, the pleasures of self, the wisdom of self, and the honors for self rather than God. It is arrogance and pride for a human being to choose sin and self rather than God. The Lord’s Prayer teaches us to seek God while the fallen heart teaches us to seek self. The Greatest Commandment commands us to love God with all of our beings and yet we flee from that and seek self. The First Commandment teaches us to have no god in the presence of the one and only true God, yet we seek self and all the things of self in His presence. We do nice things for others for the sake of self rather than out of love for God and His glory. We do nice things for others because we want ourselves and others to think well of us and we desire honor for doing nice things. However, that is not the same thing as doing those things out of true love for God and our neighbor.
In Matthew 5:27-32 Jesus deals with the issue of adultery. But again, we cannot look at this passage without seeing the fact that He is driving us to the issues of the heart and keeping the heart in the presence of God. Jesus tells us that if we look at a woman with lust for her we have already committed adultery. This is utterly shocking when we begin to get a grasp of what He is saying. The Seventh Commandment strikes to the heart and looks back to the First Commandment as well. If we commit adultery we are using another person that God has made for our own sinful purposes and we are not in obedience to God. We are also using ourselves for our own sinful purposes rather than for the purposes of God. God has created all things for His glory and pleasure and we are trying to use things and people for our own. In this sin it shows a heart that is not content with God’s way and is a heart that desires to rule over self and others rather than have no other gods in His presence.
The heart that lusts after other people is a heart that lives for its own desires rather than the desires of God. This is a heart that has no ruler but self and that is an act of arrogance and pride. The lusting heart is one that is coveting another person to fill its own lusts and desires in ways that God has forbidden. This is a heart that cares for nothing other than its own filthy pleasures. What does a person desire that looks upon another with lust in the heart? That person does not desire the glory of God but the desires and pleasures of self. The heart is always in the presence of God and it will lust after others while it appears so pious on the outside and around others. The heart can lust and commit adultery over and over in the presence of God while pretending a great righteousness in the presence of other human beings. When the heart commits sin before God over and over and yet will not do those things in front of others, it shows that the heart is more afraid of human beings than of God. It shows that the heart is so full of self that it wants honor before human beings while it commits hideous sin in the presence of God. That is pride.
God Loves... Himself 
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