Mankind are perpetually at variance, by being all of one sect, viz. selfists. (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).
The sentence by Adam is quite delicious and so descriptive if one will spend but a moment to meditate on it. Human beings are opposed to each other and differ on so many things, even fighting and killing each other, because they are so much like one another in one area. People are at variance with each other because they are so much alike. They are each their own little gods which is to say that the self is that drives them. When the self drives one human being, that self is driving that human being with the self as the focus and love of it all. When the self of one human being comes across another human being that is also driven by self-interests and self-love, the battle is on. Sure there can be some external niceness and pretending going on, but the battle is on. When two human beings driven by self have a mutual self-interest, that can keep them going on as well, but when a difference comes up, it can become quite the battle quite quickly.
Oh how righteous a human being can appear to self when self is the great love and desire of self. How quickly that love for self can turn into hatred for others who are for themselves and not the self of the other person. People can be very religious for self and can get along with others who have a religion of self as long as there is no major conflict between the two. But when a person that has died to self comes in and declares the glory and supremacy of God over self and that self must die for a person to be converted, the battle starts. The self is at the heart of sin and the heart of sin is a person doing all for self and out of love for self. But again, it is this one thing (self) that all men are born into that makes them be at such variance with each other.
The only real answer for human beings is to die to self and have the real love of the heart be the indwelling Christ. But until that answer is seen, human beings will continue to wonder where hatred comes from and why there are so many differences between people. All human beings will be selfists unless they die to self by grace and are made one with Christ by grace. True unity among humans is only found when they are united to Christ and His glory and kingdom is a mutual love and desire. So Thomas Adam set out the problem with clarity, but he also leads us to the answer. Self must be crucified and Christ must reign in the heart in order for people to be delivered from self.
God Loves... Himself 
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