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Well over 100 years ago, Charles Spurgeon put it this way, discussing how conversion can inadvertently make one self-absorbed:

“….One of the first works of the Holy Spirit is to make the man look at home, and to consider the condition of his own soul. When the Spirit of God has made a man thus to stand on his own footing before God, and to feel his personality, there springs up a danger that such a man may say, ‘I shall henceforth keep myself to myself. My chief business will be indoor work, to see after the righteousness of my own spirit and to keep myself prospering before the Lord. Other people must see to themselves, and I must see to myself.’

“The principle of individuality might be thus pushed to an extreme, till what at first was necessary grit in the spiritual constitution, making the man truly a man, may be so unduly increased that he becomes at last an unkind, ungenerous, cruel selfish thing, deprived of the best part of his humanity…’no man liveth unto himself,’ nor was he ever meant to do so. No man can compass the ends of life by drawing a little line around himself upon the ground. No man can fulfil his calling as a Christian by seeking the welfare of his wife and family only, for these are only a sort of greater self. There are outgoing lines of life that bind us not only with some men, but, in fact, with all of humanity…We are placed, therefore, in a most solemn position; and it is with regard to this that it is high time that we should awake out of sleep.”

(Source: “The Treasury of the Bible, Volume 7,” Baker Book House, 1981 p 112)

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