It is the devil’s master-piece to make us think well of ourselves. (Thomas Adam, Private Thoughts on Religion)
“The heart is more deceitful than all else And is desperately sick; Who can understand it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).
Imagine professing churches being taught that the way to have fellowship and love each other is to be nice and always speak in a positive manner. Yes, in more orthodox places we know that we must deal with sin, but even that can be done in ways that are intended to make people think they are forgiven and so feel good about themselves rather than repent in dust and ashes and be before a holy God in contrition. Niceness has replaced love and what is being nice but trying not to offend people (to be offended is really self getting mad when self is dishonored or made to face sinful self for a moment)? So people go around being nice to each other and then we try to be nice to ourselves and all we are doing is wickedly ignoring God and who we really are.
The biblical concept, or at least one of the biblical concepts, is seen in I John 1.
1 What was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the Word of Life– 2 and the life was manifested, and we have seen and testify and proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and was manifested to us– 3 what we have seen and heard we proclaim to you also, so that you too may have fellowship with us; and indeed our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 These things we write, so that our joy may be made complete. 5 This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. 6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; 7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.
The concept of fellowship in I John is not just about being nice, going to sporting events, or perhaps eating together. It may include those things, but the heart of biblical fellowship is in sharing fellowship with God. The focus of esteem is on God. Part of this fellowship is not to practice sin but to walk in the light. True fellowship comes when people are pursuing truth and holiness and in doing that they are walking with God and so they fellowship with each other. That holy and biblical practice has been replaced with casual discussion and the need to be nice and help other people feel good about themselves, which of course helps us feel good about ourselves. The reality, however, is that those things are completely opposite of biblical fellowship.
The concept of feeling good about self is one that governs all things in the modern day (or at least it seems to). If we want to think well of ourselves and feel good about ourselves, then we must love others as we want to be loved. So we are to help them think well of themselves so that they will feel good about themselves. Such says the modern professing Church. But the Bible has something far different to say about fellowship. It is to be in fellowship with God first and it includes the pursuit of holiness. At least one aspect of fellowship is being cleansed from sin.
True fellowship and true love, then, is to help people see their sin so that they can walk in the light and love God and others more in line with the truth. True love is to look beyond what a person wants to feel about self to what the person must be doing if that person is to please God and fellowship with God. True love and true fellowship have to do with spiritual things and not just talking about the things of the world. When the desire to think well of ourselves gets involved in what is termed fellowship, true fellowship is destroyed. True fellowship includes the desire to be holy and has to do with fellowship with God. True fellowship has an aspect of being cleansed from sin, which one would hope would be both the guilt of sin and then the practice of sin as well. True fellowship is not about gossip, but about dealing with the sins of both hearts and tongues. If one wants a person to think and feel good about self, the topic of sin will be studiously avoided. But if a person desires to fellowship with God and other true believers, the topic of sin will be brought up so that sin can be discovered, repented of, and God pursued in the light of holiness.
God Loves... Himself 
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