In the last BLOG the focus was on how pride is seen in Eudemonism. The soul in the blindness of its pride will seek the fulfillment of its own desires and needs by seeking God. It is true that people do not claim this and will even strongly deny it, but when the desires of the heart are for God to fulfill self that is pride. It is using God to seek the things of self and that is true even in the things of religion. It is so easy for the devil to deceive people into thinking that they are seeking God in religious things when they are doing things for self. The pride that blinds eyes to moralism also blinds eyes to Eudemonism. Jeremiah 17:9 warns us that “The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” In many ways it is only pride in a human heart that thinks it can understand the human heart when God says that a human cannot understand the heart.
“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… Eudemonism means that my desires and needs, whether temporal or spiritual, are the fundamental inspiration of my quest for acceptance with God. I seek God in pursuit of my own interests. Impelled, for instance, the fear of hell and hope of heaven, or by a yearning for present peace of heart and mind, I seek God no less for my own satisfaction than if I sought material advantages at His hands. 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)
While it may be hard for religious people to see their own pride and very hard for very religious people to see their own pride, yet the heart must see its own pride in order to really deal with it. The Pharisees did not see their own pride and yet it was so obvious to others and it is very obvious to us too. But our own pride is not as easy for us to see. As the Pharisees pride blinded them to their own pride so the pride of modern people blinds them to their own pride as well. Pride in our own hearts will magnify the pride of others and be willing to point it out for all to see, but that same pride minimizes its own pride and does not think that others see it.
The proud Pharisee would go out and pray, yet his prayer was not to God but was really to himself. “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 ‘I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.'” The Pharisee thought of this as a real and genuine prayer. He looked down on the tax collector who was nothing but a sinner in the eyes of the Pharisee. The Pharisee could not see that his religious pride was worse than all that the tax collector could do. Religious people still don’t get it either. When they have pride in their hearts, their prayers are really to themselves and are not true prayers to God. It may be the case that they use correct religious language. It may be the case that they use the name of God. It may be the case that they pray in the name of Christ. But if they have pride in their hearts, they are praying to themselves and not to God.
The heart that is full of pride seeks God only for some advantage, but in doing so that heart is really seeking the benefits of self rather than the glory of God. Whatever the soul does that seeks some benefit or advantage from God that soul is doing nothing but seeking self. It is utterly wicked for a vile piece of clay to use God to seek the things of self when the clay is commanded to use self for the purpose of manifesting the glory of God. When the proud soul seeks self in religion (even if a very religious person) it is exactly the opposite of holiness and is seeking the very essence of sin. The essence of sin is pride and self-centeredness while the essence of human holiness is being emptied of pride and self and full of the Spirit so that the soul seeks the glory of God out of true love. A soul that is full of the vomit of hell (pride and self) is a soul that is just like the devil. It is a soul that does not love God and without love for God there is no likeness of God and no holiness.
When the proud soul is seeking God in order to obtain things from God for self, it is so clear that a soul like that seeks fellowship with God primarily for some benefit it thinks it can obtain from God. God Himself is not the goal, but He is only a means to a greater end. In that case God is ultimately thought of, regardless of the creed, as an answer to human problems and needs. If we seek God only to get out of hell, then He is only sought as an answer to what I see as a need. Thus we see how preaching and evangelism can be practiced with God as nothing more than an answer to a human problem or need. How vile for human beings to treat the all glorious God like that.
God Loves... Himself 
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