The pride of human beings is expressed in differing ways. The human heart is born in pride and self-centeredness, though it is expressed in various circumstances. Regardless of the circumstances, the human heart will express its pride and self-centeredness some form. Pride and self-centeredness can be expressed in open rebellion and flagrant sin. But they can also be expressed even more in the ways of religion. Pride and self-centeredness are very much at home in stringently orthodox and very conservative churches, but also those who are steeped in liberalism as well. Pride is pride and self-centeredness is self-centeredness regardless of how they are expressed. They are at the heart of all sin. The hearts of human beings are so full of pride that they think that they can purchase favor with God. Those who issue an outright denial of this will also try to manipulate God by saying the right words or doing the right thing in order that God will be on their sides. This is nothing but the very height of pride.
“But the same egocentric motive [“I give to you, that I may get something back from you”] can be exhibited equally, if less obviously, at much more refined levels. It finds characteristic expression in the moralism, or legalism, or the eudemonism which, commonly going hand in hand, are to be observed in many otherwise widely differing forms of religion. Moralism means that my moral and spiritual attainments are regarded as decisive for the establishment and maintenance of the religious relationship. I have to do or become something in order to enable God to regard me with approval and in this way secure my standing with Him. My good and meritorious works, for example, or my personal holiness, however conceived and acquired, are assumed to be the essential basis and guarantee of my acceptance with God… In egocentric religion, fellowship with God depends ultimately on man’s achievement and is sought ultimately for man’s own ends. God is characteristically conceived in terms of the answer to human problems and needs.” (Let God Be God! An Interpretation of the Theology of Martin Luther)
Many people are willing to express in words that their spirituality depends on their morality and works. How many, while not admitting in express language, will utter things that show that they look to their own morality and works in order to maintain something of a religious relationship. But what we don’t see so clearly are those that have enough training in the Bible to know that moralism and legalism are wrong. However, the denomination they are in or the teachers they have listened to have hidden those things with religious language. Perhaps they have identified biblical words with unbiblical ideas. Perhaps they think they are biblical and are simply uninstructed. For example, there is a massive difference within denominations and individuals as to what grace really is. Yet so many will confess to others that they believe that they are saved by grace and the two will go on their way thinking they agree when in fact they are virtually polar opposite in meaning.
Down deep in our hearts do we really trust in Christ or in the fact that we are moral people? One of the main thrusts of the Bible is to deliver people from any trust in themselves and their own morality in order to trust in Christ alone as the One who justifies and as the One who sanctifies. It is not just that He sanctifies, but He is the sanctification of the believer (I Corinthians 1:30). Our morality must be the fruit of the Spirit which will only come when we are abiding in Christ and He is abiding in us. Apart from Christ we can do nothing spiritual or please God in any way (John 15:1-11). A person can be justified by Christ and still look to self in sanctification in ways that s/he has not repented of. This is remaining pride in the soul. This pride in the soul will ruin all progress in true sanctification. If a person thinks that his or her morality is pleasing to God, then that person is looking to the flesh for what the Spirit alone can do. If a person things that his or her morality is how fellowship with God is maintained, then that person trusts in the flesh from pride rather than humbly receiving all from God.
The Bible teaches that salvation is from faith to faith which is to say it is from received grace to received grace. Pride is the polar opposite of faith and so pride will always reject true grace which has no help from humans at all. Let us look at the real nature of pride in this. If I am seeking morality in order to have fellowship with God or if I think morality gives me fellowship with God, then I am seeking God for selfish and self-centered reasons. I am seeking God by another way than by Jesus Christ and according to pride rather than grace. Moralism and legalism are hideous acts of idolatry committed by the soul. They are acts of self seeking the goals of self rather than abiding in Christ seeking the glory of God out of love for God. Moralism and legalism are acts of pride that are at enmity with God. I Cor 16:22 says that we are eternally cursed if we do not love the Lord, not if we are not moral.
God Loves... Himself 
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