Finding Freedom From Yourself
One day Jesus left the crowds to pray alone.
AND BTW MGCC - that is a really good thing to do at times.
To leave the noise and the crowd (yeah, they’ll be fine without you) and to get alone with God.
IN FACT – for some in this room that is exactly what you need to do this week… today.
GET AWAY - from all the noise of life and spend some alone time with your Heavenly Father.
GET IT?
Only his disciples were with him, and he asked them, “Who do people say I am?” “Well,” they replied, “some say John the Baptist, some say Elijah, and others say you are one of the other ancient prophets risen from the dead.”
Then he asked them, “But who do you say I am?” Peter answered, “God’s Messiah.” Jesus strictly warned them not to tell this to anyone.
BECAUSE – His time had not yet come.
And he said, “ The Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”
Then he said to them all: “Whoever wants to be my disciple
QUESTION – do you want to be His disciple?
UNDERSTAND MGCC – being His disciple is about so much more than just being saved?
must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it.
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? – Luke 9:18-25
QUESTION – do you hear what Jesus is saying?
HE – is saying you that if you make your life all about you,
THEN it can never be all about Him (Jesus)...
AND NOT ONLY THAT – but you will also miss out on becoming the you God intends you to be
YOU WILL – (as Jesus said) loose and forfeit your very self.
Loose (appollymi) = destroy utterly, abolish, put an end to, render useless, put out of the way entirely
(apollo me)
• Matthew 2 - when Herod wanted to find baby Jesu to kill Him
• Matthew 9 – in the parable Jesus told about new wine being poured into old wineskins, bursting the skins running out and being ruined
• Matthew 27 – when the Jewish leaders wanted to put Jesus to death
Forfeit (zemioo) = to affect with damage, to be cast away,
• 1 Corinthians 3:15 - of a builder who has had his building burnt up
• Philippians 3:8 – of Paul considering all things lose for the sake of gaining Christ.
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? – Luke 9:18-25
HOWEVER – on the other hand…
IF YOU – deny yourself, find freedom from yourself (loose your life, for HIS sake), you will actually save and find your very self.
Prayer
OKAY MGCC…
Welcome to week 4 of our series finding freedom in a world that seeks to bind you.
AMD LISTEN - this series is about looking such things as - FEAR, WORRY AND ANGER and telling them 'You are not my master, you are not the boss of my life!"
AND MGCC – this week is about you and I looking at ourself in the mirror, and saying to ourself,
“You are not my master!”
OKAY – here’s the deal…
One of the greatest obstacles to you finding freedom in a world that seeks to bind you…. IS YOU!
UNDERSTAND – my goal this morning is very simple, for everyone in this room… to walk out those doors not only (embracing, adopting and accepting)…
BUT – striving with a dogged unrelenting determination to live out the mantra…
“It’s not about Me”
Tell someone near you… “It’s not about me”
Tell someone near you… “It’s not about you”
UNDERSTAND
It’s not… life’s not about you.
About your wants, desires, opinions… etc
NOW THERE ARE – 3 points in our notes this morning.
AND – they all start with the letter ‘R’ - I don’t why, I didn’t plan it – It just worked out this way.
• The Reality
• The Reasons
• The Remedy
I. The Reality…
Max Lucado writes;
There is a sickness that makes the black plague appear as mild as the common cold. Tally the death tolls of all infections, fevers, and epidemics since the beginning of time, and you’ll still fall short of the number claimed by this single infirmity.
And forgive me for being the one to tell you, but you are infected. You suffer from it. You are a victim – a diseased carrier. You have shown the symptoms and manifested the signs.
You have a case of – brace yourself – selfishness.
You don’t believe me?
Suppose you are in a group photo. The first time you see the picture, where do you look? And if you look good do you like the picture?
IF – you are the only one who looks good do you still like the picture?
IF – some are cross-eyed and others have spinach in their teeth, do you still like the picture?
IF THAT - makes you like it even more, you’ve got a bad case. What about physical manifestations?
CLUTCHING HANDS – do your fingers ever wrap and close around possessions?
PROTRUDING TEETH – do fangs ever flare when you are interrupted or irritated?
HEAVY FEET – when a neighboring car wants to cut in front of you, do you sense a sudden heaviness of foot on the accelerator.
EXTENDED SHOULDER – any inflammation from patting yourself on the back?
AND YOUR NECK – is it sore from keeping your nose in the air?
BUT – most of all look into your eyes.
LOOK – long into your pupils.
DO YOU – see a tiny figure?
AN - image of a person?
AN – image of you?
The self-centered see everything through self. Their motto?
It’s all about me! The flight schedule. The traffic. The dress styles. The worship styles
(yes, it’s obviously Max is a pastor with that one).
The weather, the work, whether or not one works – everything is filtered through the mini-me in the eye.
– Max Lucado
YEAH – I think Max most definitely nailed it. Many people in our world and maybe even more than a few in this room or joining us at home…
• Are infected
• Are a disease carrier
• See and filter pretty much everything through the lens of self…
A) We See Selfishness In The Garden
YOU KNOW – it’s really amazing to me, how much stuff (you know, the messed up kind of stuff) that can be traced back to Genesis chapter 3…
Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
Did God really say?
QUESTION…
WHAT IS – satan is trying to get them to do?
To doubt God’s Word.
AND MGCC - he still does the very same thing today,
Did God really say…
• I need to forgive those who hurt me
• I have to love my enemies
• That gossip, slander and negativity are… destructive, divisive and sinful
• Sex outside of marriage is a sin
•
The woman said to the serpent,
AND LISTEN – this is where it all starts to go downhill for Eve and for the rest of mankind… all because Eve chooses to engage in the wrong conversation and listen to the wrong voice.
QUESTION – do you ever make that same mistake?
“We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”
“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
AND HERE - is where the crafty one turns Eve’s focus from God to herself…
I MEAN – look how quickly life became about her.
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it.
She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. – Genesis 3:1-6
AGAIN – it all became about her, and what was good pleasing to her.
YES - we see selfishness in the garden
B) We See Selfishness In Our Culture
AND LISTEN - in our current American culture I think the infection rate may be higher than it has ever been.
Wednesday afternoon I posted the following question on my Facebook wall…
Do you think that today's culture (21st century America) is an increasingly self-centered culture?
NOW- there is absolutely nothing scientific about the results
But of those responding said Yes
And said no
Do you think that today's culture (21st century America) is an increasingly self-centered culture?
Yes – 90
No – 10
AND – of 10% that said no… they said ‘no’ because culture has always been self-centered… and because people from birth have struggled with being self-centered themselves…
AND – I agree self-centeredness has been a part of the human condition since Genesis 3…
AND SO THOUGH – I do agree that self centeredness has always been an issue …
I do feel that we as a country are getting more and more self centered all the time.
LIKE
Could imagine anybody being elected as President in our country today who would dare to say something as radical as what this guy said nearly 60 years ago… "Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.'
INSTEAD – it’s if you elect me, here is all that I will do for you…
• Pay off your student loans
• give you free health care
AND I THINK WE – would agree that social media has really put our self -centeredness on steroids…
Zach Carter Ph.D. (Psychology Today June 2017)
Fifteen years ago, if you were to take your Nikon CoolPix camera (which was the cool camera to have of course) and begin taking self-photographs of yourself, sending them to your friends and family every day, you’d be labeled some sort of a lunatic.
Yet, what has happened, is that social media has tapped into culture’s individual and collective desire for celebrity-like status. That is, promotion through the continual posting of self-images, paints many as their own celebrity for their own social network circle, may it be 200 or 200,000.
When you post habitual pictures of yourself on social media— whether through bathroom selfies, the latest adventure, endless vacation photos, married date nights, gym-progress photos, Starbuck’s outings, a child’s baseball game; the list is endless—picture comments from others easily fuels unhealthy self-validation needs, rather than healthy affirmation needs that could be filled during these actual real-world activities…
Social media centers around one primary goal: promotion of the self. Posting pictures, which visually communicate the self endlessly, provides you the opportunity to set yourself on the pedestal of promotion. When you do this, your identity can easily be found in likes and comments from those in your online social networks…
When you begin to rely on text messages, comment threads, private messages, tweets, and other social media communication to validate your self-worth, you can become easily addicted with the need to satisfy this validation need day and night by posting strategically taken self-photographs: whether they are solely of yourself, yourself with others, yourself doing adventurous things, yourself doing ideal things that paint you in a positive light, yourself in just the right pose to show off your physical body just right, and so on.
Though posting one too many selfies is not [yet] labeled a disorder, the addiction, however, is real.
C) We See Selfishness In Scripture
AND LISTEN - whenever we see it, the results are more often then not… tragic. Whenever people are jealous or selfish, they cause trouble and do all sorts of cruel things… - James 3:16
UNDERSTAND – from Genesis to Revelation…
WE SEE – selfishness, self seeking and self centeredness… CAUSING – trouble… AND – giving birth to cruel things…
IT WAS – selfishness that caused:
• Adam and Eve to bit the forbidden fruit, Cain to murder his brother, Abraham to lie and say that Sarah was his sister, Jacob to steal Esau’s birth right
• The 10 spies to give a bad report, Samson to lose his strength, David to sleep with another man’s wife
• Herod to try to kill the Christ child
• The religious to oppose Jesus
• John and James to ask for positions of power
• The disciples to flee into the darkness
• Peter to deny Jesus, Pilate to crucify God
• The early church to grumble about food distribution
• Peter to dump his ‘new’ gentiles brothers because he was afraid what his old Jewish brothers would think
• The ‘Christians’ in Laodicea to be lukewarm
Whenever people are jealous or selfish, they cause trouble and do all sorts of cruel things. – James 3:16
AND… not only to we see selfishness in – the garden, our culture, and in the Scripture, but
D) We See Selfishness In Our Own Lives
UNDERSTAND – when we peel back the layers of any relational conflict, buried beneath the rubble of all the pain and heartache we will usually find major examples of…
‘ongoing, it’s all about me, chronic self-seeking’
YES MGCC – the reality of our selfishness is IMPOSSIBLE to deny.
NOW - I don’t know about you, but I am both amazed and appalled by how quickly and easily I can make things about me… AND IN TURN – deny not myself, but deny carrying my cross.
QUESTION – anybody else out there ever struggle with, making it all (your – marriage, family, work, relationships) ALL about you?
AND NEXT… and sadly, I might add….
E) We See Selfishness In His Church
I’d like to read a quote from Francis Chan’s book, ‘Letter To The Church.’
It’s no secret that most people who attend church services come as consumers rather than servants. We see the foolishness in this, but it feels as if we have resigned ourselves to it. We have learned to accept it as though there’s nothing we can do about it.
People put money in the offering basket, which pays for the staff salaries, so the staff should do their jobs and minister to the people. It sounds like a fair and efficient system, and it works pretty well in some places. It’s not what God wanted, but it works.
God wants you to resemble His Son, especially when you gather with your church family. Do you show up to gatherings looking to serve?
As some of you read that question, you feel burdened—like a weight was just placed on you. You already live a busy life, and you want the church gathering to be a place of rest, where you can be fed.
If you think that sitting back and letting the church staff feed you will bring you the most fulfillment, you are so wrong. God promised that those who give will be most blessed (Acts 20: 35). Takers are the most miserable people on earth.
It is our inability to take our eyes off ourselves and put them onto others that destroys us. This is what Jesus saves us from. This is what the Holy Spirit wants to do in us. The most humble people are typically the happiest.
Imagine gathering with a group of people who were trying to out serve one another. Have you ever been in a room filled with humble people who count others more significant than themselves? It’s anything but burdensome.
When servants gather together, everyone is built up. No one hates consumerism more than God, because that mentality keeps the church from having the vibrancy He intended.
Don’t give up on the dream. The church doesn’t have to remain a group of needy people complaining that they haven’t been fed well enough. It really can become a group of servants who thrive in serving.
AMEN!
LIKE – let’s become that MGCC!!!
Let’s become a church where people come to…
• Worship, Learn,
• Serve, Love
• Give, build up, encourage
• And get prepared and equipped to take Jesus to the streets
RATHER THAN….
Coming to - consume, critique and complain about what we want…
OKAY – so the reality of selfishness is we see it in – the garden, in our culture, in the Scripture, in our lives, and in His church…
The next point of our notes…
II. The Reasons
A) Our Nature
AGAIN – it seems like ever since Adam & Eve took the bite of that forbidden fruit… THAT WE – who are made in the image of a ‘selfless’ God have become selfish and self-centered.
YES WE – like the world before (Copernicus and Galileo) feel as though we are center stage and that the universe revolves around (or at least it should revolve) around us – around our wants, our desires…etc.
RESULT – we’ve been demanding our way and stomping our feet since infancy?
• Feed me/Change me… Hold me/Play with me
• Pay attention to me… give me, serve me
WE WANT:
• Spouses that make us happy
• Kids that makes us look good
• bosses that appreciate us
• weather that suits us
• coworkers who always ask our opinion and show us constant appreciation
• AND – governments, churches, families and friends who serve us – and do things ‘our’ way.
self seeking, self promotion,
self preservation, self centeredness – it’s all about me…
YEAH – it seems to be part of our fallen nature.
A 2nd reason we are so self-centered & self-seeking is because of our culture.
B) Our Culture
AGAIN – it is no mystery that modern culture (especially American Culture) feeds, promotes, creates, fuels, empowers, sustains and exists on you and I being self seeking and self centered.
I MEAN – all we have to do is: turn on the TV, pick up a magazine, surf the internet, stroll through a shopping Mall or cruise the pages of social media – and you’ll hear the noise and voice of modern culture shouting and calling out to us:
• Promote yourself, Please yourself, Protect yourself
• Look out for yourself
• Make a name for yourself
• Make it all about yourself
AND LISTEN THESE – voices, this noise also tell us over and over again…
THAT - self-promotion and ‘self celebration’ (making life about us) is the path to happiness…
IN FACT – the enemy has been playing this song in mankind’s head ever since Genesis chapter 3…
RESULT: chaos, noisy homes, stress filled lives, cut throat relationships, empty and weary souls, shallow dreams and epidemic stress and depression.
AND IF – we think about it, why would we expect the results to be anything else…
AFTER ALL – we serve a selfless God in whose image we are made…
AND LISTEN – because we are created in His image, a self-seeking life will always be a never satisfied life…
REMEMBER – Jesus said….
What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self? – Luke 9:25
A 3rd reason for our self-seeking ways…
C) Our Enemy
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
– John 10:10
UNDERSTAND MGCC – your enemy the thief knows that a full life, an abundant life, an overflowing life…
IS NOT – a self-seeking and selfish life, but rather a selfless ‘God and other’s’ centered life.
THEREFORE – he will do everything he can to prevent us from living that way.
IN FACT – he trembles at the thought of you and I actually living the way that Jesus commands…
• Denying ourselves
• Taking up daily our cross
• Losing our lives for the sake of the Gospel
• Living out the apostle Paul approach to life…
I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20
AGAIN – because our enemy trembles at the thought of us living this…
HE WILL USE - our nature, our culture… and even our Gospel to keep us in our self-seeking ways…
Which brings us to the final reason why we have issues with being self-seeking…
D) ‘Our’ Gospel
UNDERSTAND – many today (especially in America) have been sold and eagerly bought into a much different Gospel than the one first delivered 2000 years ago…
AND IN – this gospel it is all about you and all for you…
COME – to Christ so that He can:
• Save you
• Heal your sickness
• Restore you
• Fix your finances
• Make you happy
• Fulfill your dreams
UNDERSTAND
IT’S A GOSPEL – powered, not by surrender and self sacrifice, BUT BY – self seeking and self indulgence…
BY - what Christ and His church can do for you…
IT’S – a consumer driven Gospel…
RATHER – than a Christ driven Gospel…
Serve me, please me, fed me, meet my needs….
AND – if you don’t I will find another place that will
AND TO BE HONEST – pastors and leaders (like me) far too often give in because we do not want people leave and for our numbers to go down…
BECAUSE – in America… numbers is the chief measure of success.
The self-centered see everything through self. Their motto? It’s all about me! The flight schedule. The traffic. The dress styles. The worship styles. The weather, the work, whether or not one works – everything is filtered through the mini-me in the eye. – Max Lucado
OKAY – we have seen the reality and looked at the reasons, now it’s time for the remedy…
How do we overcome self-centeredness and get over ourselves.
III. The Remedy
A) Accept Your Acceptance
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, God has given us every spiritual blessing in the heavenly world. That is, in Christ, he chose us before the world was made so that we would be his holy people—people without blame before him. Because of his love, God had already decided to make us his own children through Jesus Christ. That was what he wanted and what pleased him, and it brings praise to God because of his wonderful grace. God gave that grace to us freely, in Christ, the One he loves. In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God's grace, which he has given to us so fully and freely. – Eph 1:3-8
Now, come on… THAT is some good stuff, I don’t care who you are, UNDERSTAND…
IF – you are a Jesus follower, repeat after me… I am:
• chosen
• blameless
• loved
• free
• forgiven
• worthy
• accepted
• I am God’s own child
UNDERSTAND IF - you have surrendered your life to Christ - you are accepted – embrace it.
AND LISTEN – when you really embrace our acceptance… YOU - will no longer feel the need to…
Lift up, promote, exalt and make it about you…
BECAUSE – God in Christ has already has already lifted you higher than you could ever imagine.
MGCC
We having nothing to prove because we are already approved!
Get it?
LISTEN – the verdict of who you are and what you are worth is already in… Court has been adjourned.
THEREFORE – you do not need to go to the courtroom every day and put yourself on trial…
TO SEE IF YOU – measure up or performed enough…
BECAUSE – in Christ you are enough!
B) See His Glory
IN EXODUS 33 – we find Moses talking with God wanting to make sure that when he leads the people from where they are into the land of promise that God will be going with them.
If your presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here - Ex 33:15
MAN - I love it. That’s so awesome…
LORD if you’re not going with us – I don’t want to go.
AND LISTEN – Moses passion for God to be with Him really pleases God. SO - God tells Moses “ask me anything and I’ll do it.” QUESTION – if you were Moses what would you ask for?
• Could you beam me directly into Canaan, 1st class no stops
• Give me a - new and younger body/ new people to lead
Do you know what Moses’ request was?
“show me your glory!” – Exodus 33:18
UNDERSTAND - Moses is saying; “forget the money and the power. Bypass the youth. I can live with an aging body, but I can’t live without you.
I want more God, I’d like to see more of your glory.”
MGCC -Moses requests needs to be ours if we are ever going to find freedom from ourselves.
I MEAN – we’ve got problems, look at us.
• Living in dying bodies
• Walking on a decaying planet
• Surrounded by a self-centered society
THESE – are no small issues.
A small God? No thanks.
NO – what we need is what Moses needed – a glimpse of God’s glory… AND MGCC – such a sighting will change us forever. SEEING – His glory will melt our self-seeking ways like the hot sun melts butter.
I MEAN – who would ever think of bragging about their net worth in the presence of Bill Gates.
BETTER YET – who would ever think of promoting and making it about themselves in the presence of one whose glory fills the entire earth?
I MEAN – why strive to live for our glory when we can see His.
Accept your acceptance
See His glory
AND UNDERSTAND – seeing His glory puts everything into perspective, it puts YOU into perspective, which moves you to…
C) Adjust Your Life To His Story
In his book Crazy Love, Francis Chan gives a powerful illustration..
Suppose you are an extra in an upcoming movie. You will probably scrutinize that one scene where hundreds of people are milling around, just waiting for that two-fifths of a second when you can see the back of your head.
Maybe your mom and your closest friend get excited about that two-fifths of a second with you … maybe. But no one else will realize it is you. Even if you tell them, they won’t care.
Let’s take it a step further. What if you rent out the theater on opening night and invite all your friends and family to come see the new movie about you? People will say, “You’re an idiot! How could you think this movie is about you?”
Many Christians are even more delusional than the person I’ve been describing. So many of us think and live like the movie of life is all about us.
NOW – consider the movie of life…
GOD CREATES - the world (were you alive then? Was God talking to you when He proclaimed “It is good” about what He had just made?)
THEN PEOPLE – rebel against God (who if you haven’t realized yet, is the main character in the movie), and God floods the earth to rid it of the mess people made of it.
SEVERAL GENERATIONS LATER, God singles out a 99 year old man called Abram and makes him the father of a nation (did you have anything to do with this?)
LATER – along come Joseph and Moses and many other ordinary and inadequate people that the movie is also not about. God is the one who picks them and directs them and works miracles through them.
IN THE NEXT SCENE – God sends judges and prophets to His nation because His people can’t seem to give Him the one thing He asks of them (obedience).
AND THEN – the climax: The Son of God is born among people who God still somehow loves. While in this world, the Son teaches His followers what true love looks like. Then the Son of God dies and is resurrected and goes back up to be with God.
AND EVEN THOUGH – the movie isn’t quite finished yet, we know what the last scene holds. It’s a scene where every being worships God who sits on the throne, for He alone is worthy to be praised.
FROM - start to finish, this movie is obviously about God. He is the main character. How is it possible that we live as though it is about us?
OUR SCENES - in the movie, our brief lives, fall somewhere between the time Jesus ascends into heaven (Acts) and when we will all worship God on His throne in heaven (Revelation).
We have only our two-fifths-of-a-second-long scene to live.
I don’t know about you, but I want my two-fifths of a second to be about my making much of God
“So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” – 1 Corinthians 10:31
That is what each of our two-fifths of a second is about.
SO - what does that mean for you?
Frankly, you need to get over yourself.
It might sound harsh, but that’s seriously what it means.
MAYBE – life’s pretty good for you right now.
UNDERSTAND - God has given you this good stuff so that you can show the world a person who enjoys blessings, but is still totally obsessed with God.
OR MAYBE – your life is tough right now, and everything feels like a struggle.
UNDERSTAND – God has allowed hard things in your life so you can show the world that your God is great and that knowing Him brings peace and joy, even when life is hard.
LIKE – the Psalmist who wrote,
I saw the prosperity of the wicked… Surely in vain have I kept my heart pure… When I tried to understand all this, it was oppressive to me till I entered the sanctuary of God.
- Psalm 73:3,13,16,17
IT IS EASY – to become disillusioned with the circumstances of our lives to compared to others. But in the presence of God, He gives us a deeper peace and joy that transcends it all.
TO BE – brutally honest, it doesn’t really matter what place you find yourself in right now. Your part is to bring Him glory – whether eating a sandwich on a lunch break, drinking coffee at 12:04 am. So you can stay awake to study, or watching a 4 year old take a nap.
The point of your life is to point to Him.
Whatever you are doing, God wants to be glorified, because this whole thing is His.
It is His movie, His world, His gift.
YES – if you want to overcome yourself you must…
Adjust your life to His Story
Always looking for ways to point to Him no matter what circumstance you find yourself in.
I MEAN – like, we need to wake up each day and look for ways to point to Him and make it about Him (in our homes, in our marriages, workplace,
Adjusting our life to His story is about embracing Paul philosophy of living…
Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15 He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
– 2 Corinthians 5:14,15
Accept Your Acceptance - See His Glory
Adjust Your Life To His Story
D) Pursue The Freedom Of Self-Forgetfulness
AND LISTEN – self-forgetfulness is simply another word for humility.
C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity makes a brilliant observation about humility at the very end of his chapter on pride.
If we were to meet a truly humble person, Lewis says, we would never come away from meeting them thinking they were humble.
They would not be always telling us they were a nobody (because a person who keeps saying they are a nobody is actually a self-obsessed person).
The thing we would remember from meeting a truly humble person is how much they seemed to be totally interested in us. Because the essence of humility is not thinking more of yourself or thinking less of yourself, it is thinking of yourself less.
AND – there is tremendous freedom is living in this way.
AND LISTEN – when you accept your acceptance, when you see God’s glory, when you adjust your life to His story pursuing self-forgetfulness will just become that natural by product.
QUESTION – wouldn’t you want to live a life where…
• You don’t have to finish first and you can let others have the credit and glory
• You do not need the praise of other people and where you are not afraid of it either
• You are not devastated by criticism, but where you do not ignore it either and instead simply learn whatever you can from it
• How you feel about you does not rise or fall depending on the opinions of other people
• You can serve even if no one notices or if you are treated as a servant
• When you fail… you simply admit it, get back up and move forward knowing that God still, has and always will love you
• You can walk into a room and not be concerned about what you will get out it, but instead by what you can give to other people
• You are like a skater who wins the silver, and yet is thrilled about the triple jump that the gold medal winner did. To find joy in it, just as you find joy in the sunrise, to be as happy as if you had done it yourself.
QUESTION – do you want to find freedom from yourself?
I sure hope so, THEN…
Accept Your Acceptance
See His Glory
Adjust Your Life To His Story
Pursue The Freedom Of Self-Forgetfulness
HEY – do you notice what the first letter spell out?
ASAP…. (as soon as possible)
UNDERSTAND – you should want to find freedom from yourself as soon as possible… because as Jesus said.
Unless you do, you will lose and forfeit your very self and who you were created to be.
