If I bring my pride with me to the work of God, it will feed as sweetly upon it as upon any other distinction, and in the end fatally blast it. (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).
Pride is the enemy of the soul and anything that is of God. Interestingly enough, pride seems quite at home in religion in general and Christianity as well. Proverbs 8:13 tells us that “The fear of the LORD is to hate evil; Pride and arrogance and the evil way And the perverted mouth, I hate.” A person that fears the LORD will hate evil and yet pride and arrogance are part of the evil way that God hates. So when a person tries to keep pride or does not seek true humility in the work of God the pride will feed itself even in the work of God.
Proverbs 16:5 goes on to say that “Everyone who is proud in heart is an abomination to the LORD.” The religious person that is doing religious work and perhaps even a good work must not bring pride to that work or as it is feeding on its own distinction it will be an abomination to the LORD. This is to say that when pride is brought into the pulpit, that sermon and the prayers are an abomination to the LORD. When there is pride in a prayer meeting, the prayers offered or heard in pride are abominations to the LORD. When a good work is being done and a proud heart is doing that good work, that good work is an abomination to the LORD.
The proud heart spoils all that is done from it. A proud heart means that the person is doing what is being done out of the love of self and the honor of self rather than the love and honor of God. The proud heart looks at what it has done and instead of looking at the grace of God it looks at the efforts of self in the admiration of self. The motives and intentions of the heart are for self and the fulfillment of pride or the goal of pride rather than the fulfillment of the commands of God out of love. Oh how the stench of pride overcomes all the sweet savors of loving obedience out of love for God.
When Proverbs 6:16 tells us that “There are six things which the LORD hates, Yes, seven which are an abomination to Him,” we need to listen closely and we must not imagine that our good works and religious things we do will cancel out that pride. God hates haughty eyes and haughty eyes are the result of a proud heart. The Scripture does not say God hates those things only when someone is doing them in the commission of open sin, but instead it simply says that He hates those things and that they are an abomination to Him.
Matthew 18:1 At that time the disciples came to Jesus and said, “Who then is greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” 2 And He called a child to Himself and set him before them, 3 and said, “Truly I say to you, unless you are converted and become like children, you will not enter the kingdom of heaven. 4 “Whoever then humbles himself as this child, he is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.
In the passage just above we can see that Jesus hates pride. The greatest in the kingdom of heaven is the one that is the most humble. The priority of Christianity is not good works in and of themselves, but humble hearts that do the good works. It is only when the heart is humbled (emptied of self) that it can truly do what it does out of love for God. A heart that has not been emptied of self is full of self and so all it does is for self and from self. To the degree that the heart is full of self is the degree that the heart has pride and to that degree all that it does is from pride. That type of heart will rejoice in itself and be quite proud of the Christian work it does and that can include its own humility (or what it might think is humility). Even in the mature believer there must be a fight against pride or pride will feed itself on what the mature believer does as well. How appalling the nature of pride is and how utterly hateful it must be to God as the One who has made all things for Himself and then to behold people doing all things for themselves. How appalling pride must be to the God who revealed Himself in Christ as meek and humble and then to see wicked and sinful creatures doing things out of pride. How His people must seek humility.
God Loves... Himself 
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