Recently I listened to a talk by a
woman who has an impressive educational background in social work. She researches different aspects of the human
psyche and behavioural patterns we sometimes experience. She talked about shame and
vulnerability. She had some good points
in her talk, for example, that the more we expect perfection from ourselves,
the less happy we will be. The happiest
people are the ones that expect life to be tough, and not that life should turn
out perfect, or according to our own wishes and desires. I liked and agreed with that part. But then she veered off into an area that I
struggled with, and I have to say I disagree with, and that is that we should like
ourselves in order to like others. How
many times have I heard this humanistic type of thinking? It's not that we should "dislike"
ourselves either, but there should never be one extreme or the other. Frankly, we can become far too wrapped up in
ourselves for our own good whether we like ourselves too much or too
little. And this is what I want to talk
about.
I'd
like to explain my view of "self" from a Biblical perspective. When I was still a teenager, initially I had
no idea what I was doing when I chose to live the party life. I just wanted to fit in and do what the
others were doing. I thought I was
invincible and I could quit drinking, smoking and doing drugs on my own,
without any help. I was young, fearless,
daring, and looking for adventure. But
many things went very wrong, and I found myself in great need of help, so much
so, that I cried out to God. It's not so
much that I was a Christian doing these things, but that I had become trapped
by what I later discovered from the Bible what is known as the flesh, the
body of sin, the old man, and the natural man. All of these references refer to what we are
before we are redeemed. God made this
promise of redemption to Adam and Eve way back in the beginning of man's
creation after he ate of the forbidden tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
When he disobeyed God, he didn't realize that this defiant act of unbelief in
God would now forever brand all of mankind from then on as born in sin. Sin means to "miss the mark." The mark is the high standard that God sets
for all of us whom He created. Adam
missed the mark, so God put into place a plan of redemption to give mankind a
second and final chance. If we miss the
second and only chance (hence the term "born again" of the spirit),
then we are forever separated from God, lost and without hope.
Joh
3:16 📝 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only
begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
everlasting life.
Joh
3:17
For
God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world
through him might be saved.
Joh
3:18
He
that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is
condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only
begotten Son of God.
Joh
3:19
And
this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved
darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil.
But
what else happened to self on that fateful day when Adam and Eve disobeyed God
is that we then became slaves to self and all of its many demands. The Apostle Paul explains all of this in the
book of Romans in the Bible. When Jesus
died on the cross one of the major and most miraculous things He did was remove
the power of sin in us and over us that had the sentence of death upon it.
Rom 6:6 Knowing this, that our old man is crucified with him,
that the body of sin might be destroyed, that henceforth we should not serve
sin.
This is
tremendously freeing when we realize what this truly means!! For me, it meant the end of doing the things
that could never satisfy, or add to my life in any meaningful way. I no longer had the compulsion to do things
that were destructive and contrary to God's Word. I was at peace in my heart and flooded with a
sense of freedom and joy. God had taken
away the body of sin that had weighed me down for all those years! When our heart is made right with God,
everything else falls into place.
Because my heart was changed, I was no longer so focussed on myself and
my own pain. I now cared about others
and the weight of the pain they were carrying.
I wanted to spread the good news to everyone that Jesus came to set us
free, He does this today, and He will to all who believe in Him.
For
people who do not know God, they can never know the peace of God or the freedom
from the power of sin that can only come from Jesus. Perhaps we don't fully realize what the word
"salvation" really entails.
When Jesus died on the cross for us He not only took our deserved punishment
for the sins we committed against Him, He took away our selfish sinful nature
and is willing to replace it with a brand new nature, a nature that is fuelled
by the power of His Holy Spirit. As
born-again, Bible-believing Christians, we have the ability and power to live
life free from the power and compulsion to sin and no longer be focussed on
self. May we take every opportunity to
continue to live this new life of freedom in Christ, for here is where we find
all that we need to live a rich, full and completely meaningful life, driven by
the deeper purposes of God that most often involve reaching out for the
betterment of those around us. We
discover a life that is enriched with joy and peace as He leads us day by day,
through trial and triumph, and from victory to victory. Our elusive search for happiness and pleasing
self is over, for we have found our forever Friend and Savior, Jesus Christ.
