The Inescapable Self

This week Michael writes that there are times in life when crisis comes without warning.  

O Lord, our times are in thy hands. You're a good, good Father and your plan for us is a good plan. Your plan is better than we could ever imagine and your Sovereign Will works for good to those who love you and are called according to your purpose.

Even though we don't understand God's plan and His unfolding will, Jesus Christ is still at the right hand of the Father making intercession for the saints. For there is one God and one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.Therefore, despite the trials of this world, we will purpose in our hearts to walk in close proximity with our Lord Jesus Christ. We serve at the pleasure of our Lord. Our delight is His delight ... our wish is to serve our Lord with the love of God in the renewed mind. The bond-slave serves his master from a heart of love. He is not bound by chains of debt, obligation, or law. He is bound by love to serve his master willingly according to the good pleasure of his own will, aligned with his master's will. 

We are our own worst enemies. To walk in fellowship with our Lord we must forsake our selfish sin nature. When we come to our Lord, we have found the enemy and he is me. We who have been “born again” of the spirit of God, in Christ in us, have the freedom to choose whom we will serve.  

My flesh fights for acceptance, approval, and praise of others. Men and women try to escape the influence of the flesh through addictive behavior and indulgent fantasy. The egocentric self-absorbed person says, "I may not be much but I'm all I think about."  Egotism says that self-interest is the motive behind every action. Narcissistic self-centeredness used to be a vice, but today, it's celebrated as a virtue.  

The devil's original lie to Eve was: God's not God, you are. “You shall be as God, knowing good from evil."  Our original father Adam didn't uphold the truth of the Word of God when his wife considered the devil's lie. Eve disobeyed God's command by doubting God and believing the devil's lie when she "ate of the fruit of tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Then she gave Adam the fruit and he did eat. Men and women have been worshiping their own egos ever since. When Adam and Eve doubted god and disobeyed, they lost their innocence before God. In their disobedience, their sin nature was unleashed and they understood guilt, condemnation, and shame. Mankind has inherited this sin nature from Adam and has suffered the consequence of Adam's disobedience ever since.

Jeremiah 17:9-10says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? I the Lord search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.”

The truth of the Word of God has been turned upside down. The heart of mankind is deceitful and cannot know the truth of the Word of God. God will solve all the "why" questions when we come to know his Truth through our Lord Jesus Christ.  We come to an understanding that God is a good, good Father. We may not know His ways, but we know His heart of tender mercy, grace, and loving kindness.

Philippians 2:3-5“Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. Look not every man on his own things, but every man also on the things of others. Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus:”

When we come to the realization that it's not all about me, we will find rest in the midst of the storms of life.  Jesus said, come unto me all ye that are weak and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.  The attitude of Christ was to look on the things of others to serve and to bless them. Jesus emptied Himself of the right to His own will, to serve His Father by gladly serving from a heart of love those whom God had committed to His keeping. 

Philippians 2:6-8 “Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: But made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men:  And being found in fashion as a man, he humbled himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross.”

A bond servant doesn't serve his master by law, but by love. Jesus Christ gave up His "right" to Himself and crucified His own will when He prayed to his Father, "not my will but thine be done."  The paradox of the Christian life says that in order to gain, you need to lose.  Jim Elliot, the missionary to South America understood this truth.  Elliot said before he was martyred, "He is no fool who gives that which he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose." Humility defeats pride.  Humility frees us from "the insidious preoccupation with self."  Humility says, "Make me a captive Lord, and then I shall be free. Force me to render up my sword and I shall conqueror be. I sink in life's alarms, if by myself I stand. Imprison me within thine arms and free shall be my stand!"

May God richly bless you!

Your brother in Christ, Michael