I do not want humanity or social virtue. I can be honest and civil, and observe the law of kindness in my actions; but who shall give me humility, meekness, patience, inward purity, and the love of God? (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).
When one considers how deceitful the heart really is, though indeed the heart is so deceitful sinful man cannot get to the depths of it, man is shocked at how he has been deceived by his own heart, others, things, and the deceiver. While the flesh can work up honesty to a degree, even in the midst of that the heart is being deceived about what honesty is as well as the fact that fleshly honesty is a lie itself. It is a lie about what true honesty is and it is a lie about the truth of God and what pleases Him.
While the flesh can work up civility to a degree, it is a blatantly uncivil thing to do in the presence of a thrice holy God and how uncivil it is to attack the character of God by presuming that fleshly civility is righteous. While the flesh can work up something sort of like kindness to a degree, it is a blatant like to people about the character of God and of what true kindness to the soul really is. The attempt of the flesh to work up honesty, civility, and kindness is nothing more than an attack upon the standards of God and upon the truthfulness of who God is. It is also nothing more than the desires of self-love as opposed to love for God.
The whole motive for civility, honesty, and kindness can be said to be that of making society better, but even that can be nothing more than fleshly self-love. A person that desires civility can want others to be civil back to him or her and so the desire for civility is really nothing more than self-love. A person that mistakes civility for biblical love can also make a huge mistake about what love and true righteousness is and so civility becomes an idol. A person that desires honesty can long for honesty simply to make our country easier to get by in, which can be self-love but can also desire honesty out of nothing but self-love. This desire for honesty can also be mistaken for the biblical standards of truthfulness out of love for God and so the deceptive heart deceives the outwardly honest person into a false standard of righteousness and of making an idol of it.
It may be that kindness or even niceness is the worst of the three in terms of its deceptive power on the soul. With the appearance of kindness a person can be kind or nice to others and so deceive the other person into thinking that the first person is actually kind and nice, so that contributes to the self-deception of the person showing the apparent kindness or niceness. This is also a huge idol to the soul and an awful form of deception. The person that thinks of self as kind or nice tries to convince self that it is truly kind and nice by doing certain acts that appear kind or nice. But the doing of certain acts that appear as kind or nice can be nothing but self trying to convince others of what it is and also of convincing self of what it is. But those things are done out of self-love and are done in the worship of self rather than out of love for God. How devious and deceptive of the deceiver, but also how horrid is the deceitfulness of the heart that deceives itself with outward acts of kindness and niceness.
This shows how the soul with true spiritual taste buds and light from the Spirit can look upon itself and despise its own works of civility, honesty, and kindness or niceness that come from the flesh. This shows how these things are consistent with the pride of the heart and how deceptive the heart is to deceive itself with these things as if they are true righteousness. The Pharisees had great pride in their giving of alms which is one way to demonstrate social virtue and have acts of kindness, but they did them for self and the love of self. They desired to demonstrate a false humility, but it appears that they did not have true humility, an inward purity, or a love for God. While social virtues can be faked, it takes the work of God in the soul for the soul to have true humility, meekness, and love. A true heart will despise social virtues that come from the flesh and long and hunger for the things that only God can give it by grace.
God Loves... Himself 
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