“Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.”—James 4:3 CWG 39.1
How may we know when our prayers are self-centered? CWG 39.2
Prayers from proud and selfish hearts: “Your pride threatens to be your ruin.... Your prayers ... come from hearts filled with pride and selfishness.”—Testimonies For The Church 2:176 CWG 39.3
“God cannot approve of the least degree of covetousness or selfishness, and He abhors the prayers and exhortations of those who indulge these evil traits. As Satan sees that his time is short, he leads men on to be more and more selfish and covetous, and then exults as he sees them wrapped up in themselves, close, penurious, and selfish.”—Early Writings, 268 CWG 39.4
A selfish prayer: “In the parable of the Pharisee and the publican, the self-sufficient prayer, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not as the rest of men,’ stood out in sharp contrast to the penitent's plea, ‘Be merciful to me the sinner.’ ”—The Desire of Ages, 495 CWG 39.5
“They are boastful, and pray and talk in a self-righteousness manner, exalting themselves, recounting their good deeds, and, like the Pharisee, virtually thanking God that they are not as other men.”—Testimonies For The Church 1:416 CWG 39.6
“The Pharisee's boastful, self-righteous prayer showed that his heart was closed against the influence of the Holy Spirit.... He felt no need, and he received nothing.”—Steps to Christ, 31 CWG 39.7
The hope of winning commendation: “The Pharisee goes up to the temple to worship, not because he feels that he is a sinner in need of pardon, but because he thinks himself righteous and hopes to win commendation. His worship he regards as an act of merit that will recommend him to God.... And he is full of self-praise. He looks it, he walks it, he prays it.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 150 CWG 40.1
“We must have a knowledge of ourselves, a knowledge that will result in contrition, before we can find pardon and peace. The Pharisee felt no conviction of sin. The Holy Spirit could not work with him. His soul was encased in a self-righteous armor which the arrows of God, barbed and true-aimed by angel hands, failed to penetrate.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 158 CWG 40.2
Behold Christ: “While speaking to God to poverty of spirit, the heart may be swelling with the conceit of its own superior humility and exalted righteousness.... We must behold Christ. It is ignorance of Him that makes men so uplifted in their own righteousness.... CWG 40.3
“The prayer of the publican was heard because it showed dependence reaching forth to lay hold upon Omnipotence. Self to the publican appeared nothing but shame. Thus it must be seen by all who seek God. By faith—faith that renounces all self-trust—the needy suppliant is to lay hold upon infinite power.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 159 CWG 40.4
The peril of self-sufficiency: “The evil that led to Peter's fall and that shut out the Pharisee from communion with God is proving the ruin of thousands today. There is nothing so offensive to God or so dangerous to the human soul as pride and self-sufficiency.”—Christ's Object Lessons, 154, 155 CWG 40.5
When we are self-centered, self-opinionated, filled with self-love, we will pray like the Pharisee and we will look, walk and act it. Covetousness, boastfulness, and a selfish attitude, exalting ourselves and our good deeds, telling others what wonderful Christians we are, if we are like this, then hell's door is wide open for us to walk straight in, and because of our pride, we won't even know where we went. CWG 40.6
Ignorance of Christ's will leads us to self-conceit, self-deceit and false security and self-sufficiency. And the biggest problem is that when we are like this, we have no idea about our misled, deluded condition. CWG 40.7
If we open our hearts to God in earnest prayer and acknowledge our desperate need and ask Him to search our hearts and reveal to us our degraded spiritual condition, then only can our terrible spiritual problems be cured. Let's be honest. We have all suffered or are suffering under this self-destroying disease called pride. CWG 40.8
Lord, please have mercy upon us and help us to see ourselves as we really are and give us time to repent and help us to develop humility and Christlikeness under the guidance of Your Holy Spirit. CWG 41.1