The Super Surrendered Self.

The Super Surrendered Self.

Luke 9:23-25TPT.

The self is the real you, the unique person. The self is everything about you. It's your temperament, traits, personality, character, mood, thoughts, attitudes, values, and your deepest believes. The self is the internal you, the invisible you, the true person within.

My mother has made this comment to me on a few occasions: “Howard, I don't know what I'm gonna do with you.”

Mark twain said, “I've had more trouble with myself than any person I've ever met.”

Q&A: How do you manage yourself? How do you deal with yourself? What do you do with yourself?

Luke 9:23-25TPT  Jesus said to all of his followers, “If you truly desire to be my disciple, you must disown your life completely, embrace my ‘cross’ as your own, and surrender to my ways. 24 For if you choose self-sacrifice, giving up your lives for my glory, you will discover true life. But if you choose to keep your lives for yourselves, you will lose what you try to keep. 25 Even if you gained all the wealth and power of this world, and all the things it could offer you, yet lost your soul in the process, what good is that?

Socrates the philosopher said, Know thyself. Shakespeare said, To thine own self be true. The artist says, express yourself.

The Eastern Mystic says, transcend yourself. The humanist say, actualize yourself.

The externalist says, experience yourself.

The hedonist or (playboy) is a person who believes that the pursuit of pleasure is the most important thing in life; a pleasure-seeker.

The hedonist says, Indulge yourself.

The narcissist says, promote yourself.

The materialistic says, accumulate things for yourself.

Every day we have a choice:

We can decorate ourselves.

We can demean ourselves.

We can deify ourselves.

We can divide ourselves.

We can deceive ourselves and walk around in our fantasy world.

Or, we can deny ourselves, and listen to the invitation of Jesus.

In Luke chapter 9, Jesus gives His twelves disciples instructions, and authority in His name.

Listen to Luke 9:1-6NLT One day Jesus called together his twelve disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. 2 Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the Kingdom of God and to heal the sick. 3 “Take nothing for your journey,” he instructed them. “Don’t take a walking stick, a traveler’s bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes. 4 Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave town. 5 And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.”

And then Luke say’s in verse 6, So they began their circuit of the villages, preaching the Good News and healing the sick.

If you’re a child of the Most High, He has given you instructions and authority in His name.

Again, everyday you have a choice:

We can decorate ourselves.

People can decorate themselves when they live an external life, a materialistic external life.

They operate from a life of style—not substance.

Sadly, some people even take that approach to spirituality. It's all external with rituals, services, and traditions, but there's nothing going on in their hearts between them and the Lord.

Matthew 23:5, 27TPT  Jesus stated, 5. Everything they do is done for show and to be noticed by others. They want to be seen as holy, so they wear oversized prayer boxes on their arms and foreheads with Scriptures inside, and wear extra-long tassels on their outer garments.

Again, Matthew 23:27TPT, Jesus states, “Great sorrow awaits you religious scholars and Pharisees—frauds and imposters! You are nothing more than tombs painted over with white paint—tombs that look shining and beautiful on the outside but filled with rotting corpses on the inside.

Jesus said to the same group of people: Matthew 15:8TPT These people honor me only with their words, for their hearts are so very distant from me.

This reminds me of a story about a man who at 75 years old lost his wife, and then decided he wanted a new season of life. So, he did a complete makeover, bought a whole new young wardrobe, and a new brand new convertible.

He met a 45-year-old woman and started dating her. They fell in love and got married. They left the marriage ceremony in his car, and on the way to their honeymoon, they had a car accident and he was killed. He was furious when he arrived in heaven, and said to the Lord, “how can you do this to me? I just started a whole new season of my life.” The Lord looked at him and did a double take. He said, “Sorry, Mike, I didn't recognize you.”