Are you really dead to self?

Who is self?

Who did the disciples consider themselves to be? From their remarks on who is the greatest (An argument started among the disciples as to which of them would be the greatest – Luke 9:46), the mother of Zebedee’s sons who asked for them to sit on both sides of Jesus when He became king (Matthew 20:20-22) and Peter's attitude of self importance (Peter answered and said to Him, “Even if all are made to stumble because of You, I will never be made to stumble.” – Matthew 26:33) we can see that self was initially first and foremost to them. 

    

Even though Jesus did all the miracles and often spoke of His heritage, they still perceived Him from an earthly perspective and because of this perception they sought position in Jesus' expected hierarchy. Self was first on the minds of the disciples until Jesus died for them. This shook them so hard that they went into hiding, not really knowing what to do.

It was only after the Holy Spirit was poured out on them that they understood the spiritual significance of Jesus' purpose for coming to earth. This together with the hours of training they received from Jesus caused a miracle in them - self died. Thereafter only one thing mattered - the Kingdom of God and its King.

Has Jesus died for you? No, that answer came too quickly. After all the teaching the disciples received about what would happen to Jesus, they were still very much focused on self, until the reason why Jesus died and resurrected became reality for each one personally. The stark realization that that which they witnessed during the crucifixion was actually for them personally, made them painfully aware of how petty their self centred attitude was in the light of Jesus' display of ultimate selflessness. If you had to literally stand at the cross during the crucifixion and became aware of your selfishness in the light of Jesus' selflessness, would you have changed?

Only when the Holy Spirit reveals to you the reality of Jesus' sacrifice for you personally, will self die in you and will you walk in the selflessness and power of Jesus. John the Baptist who was already rock bottom in terms of material goods and social status declared that Jesus had to become more and he less.

I ask again; has Jesus died for you in the sense that you are so awed by it that you will gladly shift self out of the way so Jesus could shine instead. Are you so stunned by His sacrifice that you are ashamed of your attitude in life?

Holy Spirit, please fill me with an awareness of Jesus' selflessness so I can become like Him.

Are you dead (part four) to pet sins?

This may be a touchy subject. Let us first define pet sins. A pet sin is something you enjoy, but which is evil in the Lord's eyes. It is usually something we justify ourselves for. The knowledge that we are free in Christ does not help much when it comes to this self justification. Some of us are very aware of this sin, but some don't see anything wrong with what they are doing. We think that God does not mind our pet sins, since we think they are forgiven in Christ and therefore we reckon we are free to sin as well. There are, however, many passages contradicting this self justification of which the following are the most relevant:

1 John 3:5-6: ^“But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him.”

Romans 6:1-4: “What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We are those who have died to sin; how can we live in it any longer? Or don’t you know that all of us who were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into his death? We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.”

 Romans 6:15-17: “What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means! Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?”

1 Corinthians 6:12, 13B (Amp): “Everything is permissible (allowable and lawful) for me; but not all things are helpful (good for me to do, expedient and profitable when considered with other things). Everything is lawful for me, but I will not become the slave of anything or be brought under its power. The body is not intended for sexual immorality, but [is intended] for the Lord, and the Lord [is intended] for the body [to save, sanctify, and raise it again].” This is written in the context of sexual immorality.

We find a similar passage in 1 Corinthians 10:23-24 (Amp) in the context of the believer’s freedom: “All things are legitimate [permissible—and we are free to do anything we please], but not all things are helpful (expedient, profitable, and wholesome). All things are legitimate, but not all things are constructive [to character] and edifying [to spiritual life]. Let no one then seek his own good and advantage and profit, but [rather] each one of the other [let him seek the welfare of his neighbour].”

Examples of pet sins are:

Serving Mammon, in other words enjoying and making use of the comfort and enjoyment that money and a materialistic lifestyle brings at the cost of service to the Kingdom of God. It is very convenient to live as you like, avoiding the obvious sins, but only tagging Christianity along as an eternal security measure. The problem is that in this process a serious sin is committed, which is disobedience to the Holy Spirit, since obedience may cause us inconvenience regarding our lifestyle of materialistic comfort.

Sports: An excessive awareness of and participation in sports, either as spectators or athletes at the cost of serving the Kingdom is sin. Again we have self justification here. “I take part to the glory of God.” What you need to ask yourself is what is in your heart. How does your focus benefit and promote God's Kingdom in that souls are saved, people are discipled and educated in God's ways. If you only use yours being a Christian to benefit your sport and the image you portray, you sin. If you put the watching of and participation in sports above the development and usage of your gift to serve the Kingdom, you sin and need to die to this sin.

Yielding to the desires of the sinful nature (the flesh):

These could be greed, dishonesty, anger, selfishness, lust, pornography, vanity, hatred, unforgiveness, corruption, manipulation, etc. There are many demands we receive from our flesh or carnal nature that need to be overcome and die, since they stand in the way of our purity and an unhindered relationship with the Lord, (Galatians 5:16-26) Do not be deceived. God may love you as you are, but without holiness no-one will see the Lord (Hebrews 12:14). The word holiness here means sanctification or being made holy. This is a process. See the series on holiness to be found in the archive to the right of the Word bytes blog in August and September 2014.

Satan and his demons attempt to use these weaknesses in the flesh to make us ineffective and delay God's plan with us. The Lord, however, uses them to form our character and to teach us a victorious life as well as self control (Paul’s thorn – 2 Corinthians 12:7-9). The aim is for the above-mentioned things to die so we could be completely sold out to the Kingdom - or as Isaiah put it in his famous chapter about True Fasting: “If you do away with the yoke of oppression, with the pointing finger and malicious talk, and if you spend yourselves in behalf of the hungry and satisfy the needs of the oppressed, then your light will rise in the darkness, and your night will become like the noonday.”

Lord, please show me my pet sins and help me die to them.

Are you dead (Part Three)

In the previous message we started looking at what is it in us that should die?

The next thing that should die is our pride. If we look carefully at our lives we will find a lot of pride. Maybe you will see what I am getting at by answering the following questions.

·         Do you get agitated when someone underestimates your ability, understanding, intelligence etc?

·         Do you get envious of someone whose gift appears to be better than yours?

·         Do you get jealous when people appear to adore or enjoy someone else's ministry gifting or style?

·         Do you jealously hold onto the power that you have obtained over time?

·         When your faults or errors are pointed out, do you retaliate - even if only in your heart and thoughts?

·         Are you acting in self defence when you feel threatened regarding your power, popularity or position of influence?

·         How dependent are you on the Lord? Do you consult Him in everything you do, because if we don’t, we tell the Lord in essence we can do it ourselves and don't need Him - pride?

·         Do you try to control – even the works of the Spirit?

·         When you pray publicly or minister, do you catch yourself thinking whether you impress God or listeners?

I think you get the gist of what I am saying. “The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted,” (Matthew 23:11-12). I think the reason why we do not see the kind of power that Jesus and the apostles used to see is because pride stands in the way. Most of us want to be seen. When a move of God happens somewhere else, we often want it as well. Why would that be? What is the motive behind our desire?

Jesus' focus was completely on His Father (John 8:27-29) and the disciples' focus similarly on Jesus via the Holy Spirit (John 15:5). We say all the right stuff, but what do we think? Are you like the apostles who gave their lives for the Kingdom's sake, or are you like Ananias and Sapphira who lost their lives lying to the Holy Spirit in order to impress others to maintain their pride.

Jesus humiliated Himself to the lowest possible level and the result was that He was exalted to the highest possible level. Even in this high position He still humbles Himself by pleading on our behalf before the Father.

How low are you prepared to go or is pride standing in the way? Do you think if pride stood in their way the apostles would have been so recklessly obedient. Paul used to be a man of stature (Acts 23:6), yet he did not think twice to obey to the point of a life as described in 2 Corinthians 11:22-29. How do you think a man of his position felt about being flogged, thrown into jail, and chased out of town by hooligans? If you were in his position, would your pride not have retaliated?

Take Jesus - how many times do we see Him defending Himself? Who was He and where did He come from? If He had any pride, how would He have reacted to the way He was treated? If you were in His shoes, how would you have dealt with it?

And Peter? He had a good deal of pride that Jesus had to deal with, but when the Holy Spirit took over it all changed. Maybe this is the secret. Who controls us - our pride or the Holy Spirit?

If pride is altogether dead and we have no self centred motives left, we are about ready to move in the same power Jesus did. Miracles and healings are not the only manifestations of power - any evidence of God's power backing His servants is a manifestation of the humble being exalted. I am thinking of teaching, serving and witnessing that result in salvation and faith.

The letter kills, but the Spirit brings life (2 Corinthians 3:4-6). A word uttered or a deed done in pride is void of power, even though it is from the Word of God, whereas the latter done in humility in the Spirit works change.

Just after the outpouring of the Holy Spirit in Acts, Peter simply witnessed without signs and miracles and well researched words and 3000 got saved in an instant. What happened? After the recent events and his experience with the Lord Jesus Peter was humble enough to have the right motive for his actions – the will of God. With him out of the way the Holy Spirit had the stage to show God off. They same happened throughout the book of Acts with all the believers.

Who do you show off? Remember there is no point in only answering with words. What is in your heart?

Lord, please reveal my pride so I can humble myself completely.