SELF

 I wanna start this off with the blog of a friend of mine. Brother Greg Ruark. His blog then my rambling or my response.

Greg's Blog:

What About Me?

If you cling to your life, you will lose it, and if you let your life go, you will save it. [Luke 17.33]

What does this say to all our self-preservation, self-help, and self-centeredness today? I think it says we are fatally flawed in our infatuation of self!

"Self awareness" is a big buzzword today also. What does that mean? Look it up - it's a mess of concentration upon oneself. That, in and of itself, should alert the Bible believer that something is amiss.

Jesus did address issues regarding self as we see in Luke 17.33. However, Jesus did not deal with self as we do today! Instead of focusing on self, Jesus was very clear that self was a force to be ignored and dismissed. Self stands in the way of a genuine relationship with God. As counterintuitive as it may seem, self stands in the way of life. An embrace of self is an embrace with death.

Jesus did not just teach self abasement, but He lived it out in ultimate form. Jesus willingly submitted to the Cross for the greater good of mankind. Jesus used no unclear language in declaring the necessity for us to embrace our own cross as evidence of having fully submitted to Him.

Every one of us must come to terms with Luke 17.33. It is not simply an occasional sermon topic, good idea, or inspirational exercise. Luke 17.33 stands as the dividing line between those who are God's and those who are not. 

Is it any wonder the world is so focused then on self? The pandemic spiritual disease of self-centeredness is infinitely worse than any virus will ever be.

Until we see the world's obsession with self for what it is - purely demonic and idolatrous, we are of no consequence to Satan and of no benefit to the Kingdom of God. 

Self-centeredness is the opposite of Jesus Christ. John the Baptist said it best:

He must become greater and greater, and I must become less and less. [John 3.30]

Father, take my life that Christ might be glorified in me. May I experience only a heightened awareness of Christ in me with no reserved thought for self.

My Comment:

“Anyone who isn’t with me opposes me, and anyone who isn’t working with me is actually working against me.” Matthew 12:30 NLT

Those right there are red letters brother, yep I couldn’t agree more brother, Greg. This world is eat up with the disease of self. We are no more than what used to be a leprosy village. When others come near we yell out, SELF! SELF! SELF! We don’t want to be caught off guard, not letting the world know we are first, but it’s ironic that we are actually contagious. It’s so blindingly guiding us to our own death now as you said earlier. The Leppers were actually warning people off from them because of the contagion they carried. We the world now are telling the world self self look at me before you do yourself. We are drawing others in and they are catching the contagion it carry’s and they become infected with self themselves. The enemy has so deceived the world that he has convinced the world to do his work for him. The world now pulls everyone into itself. Barring the only fix for its self centeredness is only Christ Jesus, but with this in mind how does that affect the church? No Different than the whole world. The church now is the world and the world is the church. Now this isn’t entirely true of coarse but it is largely true. A smaller percentage of the people in church are free from Self. We are all plagued by it at times and it is more of a pandemic than anything cellular or microscopic. COVID has nothing on the disease SELF.

“What shall we say about such wonderful things as these? If God is for us, who can ever be against us?” Romans 8:31 NLT 

If we learn to simply “Let go and Let God” we will find that nothing can harm us.

“no evil will conquer you; no plague will come near your home. For he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go. They will hold you up with their hands so you won’t even hurt your foot on a stone. You will trample upon lions and cobras; you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet! The Lord says, “I will rescue those who love me. I will protect those who trust in my name. When they call on me, I will answer; I will be with them in trouble. I will rescue and honor them. I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.” Psalms 91:10-16 NLT

“Look, I have given you authority over all the power of the enemy, and you can walk among snakes and scorpions and crush them. Nothing will injure you.” Luke 10:19 NLT

We have scripture after scripture to rely on to fall back on in times of need. We should be continually living in that need but we again get caught up in SELF.

“I tell you the truth, you can say to this mountain, ‘May you be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ and it will happen. But you must really believe it will happen and have no doubt in your heart. I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours. But when you are praying, first forgive anyone you are holding a grudge against, so that your Father in heaven will forgive your sins, too.” Mark 11:23-25 NLT

This is a scripture that’s clearly spot on with this message brother. The world gets caught up in the first two and doesn’t tend to look at or consider the last verse here. First forgive! Then! See we get caught into self even within the scriptures. The enemy has planted this seed long before we were even born within the church and we have continued to eat it cause the generation before us did. NO, NO MORE. We are born again children of God who fear no evil! We must submit our lives over to Him wholeheartedly not haphazardly where we don’t understand our own decisions. By wholeheartedly giving of ourselves we know all the ins and outs of our decisions. But by haphazardly giving we know not why and that is an opening for the enemy to deceive and mislead even the elect.

Father keep us in your Word and guide us by it and not our haphazard decisions of an excuse because so-and-so did it. Let us know we are wholly in your will and following your Word. Father let us walk free from our own Self and give ourselves wholeheartedly over to you. In the precious beautiful amazing wonderful gracious humble selfless name above all names Christ Jesus, Amen!