Translate

Saturday 30 November 2013

The End of Self


An interesting thought came to me after I wrote the previous blog, "How to Handle Change."  I looked over my previous blogs and realized I was writing very similar messages.  The message I've been getting and writing about has to do with being led of the Spirit and the importance of listening to God.  So I prayed about that and I believe the Lord impressed on me that when the message He is giving is repeatedly the same, this means that we really really need to pay attention to it! 

Have you ever talked to your spouse or another person and you knew they were not really listening, but were distracted by something else or perhaps other thoughts?  I am sure we have all experienced this and have done this ourselves, perhaps innocently enough, but if we repeatedly do not listen or take to heart what a loved one or friend is saying, we won't have much of a relationship with them, will we?  And sometimes chaos ensues when we have not been paying attention, especially if we have made plans that are about to unfold, and we have failed to tell our spouse!  When God speaks to us, there is always a very good reason, and if He is repeating the same thing over and over again, then we better start paying attention! 

What happens when the Lord is trying to get a message across to us and we're simply not hearing, or listening or responding?  Usually it is a crisis, something very dramatic or traumatic, or something that causes us to stop what we're doing.  We may feel like we are backed into a corner and we have no other choice but to finally quiet ourselves down and take the time to pray AND listen AND respond.  This has definitely happened to me more than once when God was trying to get a message across to me.  In fact, the first time I was a teenager and  I had turned so far away from God that I was sure my life was over.  And in a sense, it was. I had really come to an abrupt end of myself and my ungodly lifestyle of living according to my own desires, or according to the "flesh," as the Bible calls it. 

Have you ever heard of testimonies of people who seemed the least likely to turn to God, or had reached their end and then had a miraculous turn-around that set them on the right path with God?  The Bible is filled with such examples.  When God confronts us, it changes us forever and we never want to go back to the life we once had.  But this always comes at a great cost – the cost is giving up our "self" life and submitting ourselves to Him for His purposes and plans. 

The question is, do we have to reach an end to ourselves before God can get ahold of us?  When I was researching all those many years for the book on backsliding that I wrote and published, one of the verses that kept coming to mind is the following: 

Pro 14:14    The backslider in heart shall be filled with his own ways: and a good man shall be satisfied from himself. 

Backsliding is turning away from the Lord, and what the verse showed me is that when we choose our own way, we actually become enslaved by the constant desires of the "flesh."  The Apostle Paul talks about this at length in the book of Romans.  Only the Lord can set us free from our own selfish motives and our sinful desires, and bring us to an end of the demanding and futile self-life. 

Then the Bible talks about being stiff-necked and in the same verses it talks about hardening our own heart. 

Pro 29:1    He, that being often reproved hardeneth his neck, shall suddenly be destroyed, and that without remedy. 

What happens when we become hardened to the things of God?  When Christians especially are not heeding the call and messages from God to honor Him and His Word and repent, iniquity will take over, and Satan has a heyday.  This doesn't happen overnight either.  It is often a slow and gradual process, as one by one, we compromise, excuse our sin, let things slip, and gradually the moral ground beneath our feet collapses and we fall.  This is a very serious matter that affects not only us, but whole families, societies and nations! 

The Old Testament is filled such examples, especially pertaining to the children of Israel and Judah in particular.  If we take a look at Jeremiah, God uses the prophet Jeremiah to plead for His people to turn from their backsliding ways and return to Him, but they refuse to listen!  

 Jer 2:19    Thine own wickedness shall correct thee, and thy backslidings shall reprove thee: know therefore and see that it is an evil thing and bitter, that thou hast forsaken the LORD thy God, and that my fear is not in thee, saith the Lord GOD of hosts. 

Each time the children of Israel backslid and turned away from God (most notably they had gotten into idolatry and began worshipping pagan gods and followed their ways), they would be taken captive by their enemies.  Then they would find themselves in such a mess that they would cry out to God to deliver them, and He would out of His immense love and faithfulness to them, but astonishingly, their hearts did not change!  They wanted to go back to the pagan ways.   

How does this relate to us today?   God is looking for us to be faithful to Him and put Him first in our lives.  He is looking for empty vessels (empty of self) that He can use to show others how loving and gracious He alone is!  He has set us apart, like He did with the children of Israel, and He wants our complete devotion to Him.  If we are too distracted by our own selves or the things of this world, we will not be paying attention to Him, or worshipping Him in a way that He deserves and that is honoring to Him. 

In my last blog, "How to Handle Change," I talked about the many losses and trials me and my husband have been experiencing.  There have been many more losses I never even mentioned.  For me, God has set me on a definite path to follow Him and it has not always been an easy road.  Where I wanted a life of ease, God led me down a difficult path fraught with uncertainty and disappointment where I had to trust in Him.  Of course, He's always brought me through and my life is always better because of the difficulties, although I can't see it at the time. 

Many years ago, when I was still single and feeling lonely, watching all my friends get married and move on in their lives, I wondered what my future held as year after year I was met with so much disappointment.  I wanted to write, but had to support myself with work that wasn't fulfilling; I wanted to be married, but the right one didn't come along.  My dreams and desires were set aside time and again because I had to wait.  During that long waiting period, God was working on my heart and refining me, then just before He opened the doors of my heart's desires, He challenged me to see if I would be faithful to Him even if He never opened the doors to fulfill my heart's desires.  It was a most sobering experience.  While others may have thought that since I was young I should be out having a good time, God was working out the deeper, meaningful things of my heart so that He could later use me and my writing for His purposes.  During that time, when I was questioning why things weren't working out for me, I read the following:   

2Co 7:10    For godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of: but the sorrow of the world worketh death. 

Jas 4:9    Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness.Jas 4:10    Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and he shall lift you up. 

I certainly had sorrow in my life, and things were pretty serious, hardly the picture of a care-free young woman enjoying a husband, family and career of my dreams!  I came to realize that the mourning and the sorrow were necessary to end the life of self that I too often gave preference to and didn't even realize it!  Were my dreams and my heart's desires greater than my desire to love and serve the Lord?  That was the final test before He opened the door and granted me the desires of my heart.  Like Abraham being asked to sacrifice his long awaited son, I had to lay down my heart's desires and be proven that the Lord would always mean more to me than anything else in this life!  This is a life-long lesson since as humans, we fail, and we can't trust our own heart when it comes to the things of God!  Only God knows, so He will test us and refine us and make us more like Him.   

Perhaps today you find yourself in a similar situation as mine, and you can't understand why things aren't working out the way you hoped and planned.  Or perhaps you are in more serious circumstances and you are up against a wall, not knowing how to get out of your situation.  Seriously, now it is time to pray and really listen to what the Lord wants to say to you or teach you through it all.  And if you are a child of God, and you really want to serve Him, then He will continue working with you bringing you to an end of the self-life so that you can be made better and find true meaning and purpose in your spiritual life.   

Job 23:10  But he knoweth the way that I take: when he hath tried me, I shall come forth as gold.
 

 

No comments:

Post a Comment