SOUL NEED PART 2

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TO FORGET ONE’S SELF

What is it that a man has a hard time letting go of one’s self? What is he afraid of?  Is he afraid of his own Maker?  Is he afraid of the very thing God created him for? Is he afraid he isn’t good enough?  Is he afraid of some kind of control he thinks he has being taken away? Is he afraid of having to do something he won't enjoy?
 
What does he think he will miss out on?  I find the very freedom we think we have is an only a mere illusion to keep us captive so we don't see our doomed fate until it is too late.   

Yes, this illusion of freedom- set in the confines of worldly wisdom only condemns the soul, enslaves the soul to the desires of the flesh, and holds us captive to a life that wasn't planned or designed for us.   It’s only when we come to our senses by the grace and mercy of God and give our stunted life to God, God waters it and puts light on it and it begins to grow.  All things become new.

“Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things have become new.” 2 Corinthians 5:17

Ezekiel 36:26 says “And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart.”

  

God is always continuing to make things new in our life. He is refining our faith and encouraging us in our faith.  Does this mean things are always at bliss or we are “perfect” and we are immune to the feelings such as weary, apprehensiveness, anxiousness? Of course not!  But these temporary things make us realize where our focus has gone and where it needs to be put back onto.  

  

Recently I saw a book entitled, “The Freedom of Self-forgetfulness”

Don’t you wish you could leave self at the curb for the garbage man to come pick up and never see it again? 

Since we can’t get rid of self this only reinforces our need for God.  We never out grow or become so mature that we can handle life without God’s help and assurance.  We are called “Children of God” for a reason.  Children need assurance from their Heavenly Father.  And this great and mighty assurance helps us overcome the insecurities of ourselves and the conformities of this world.  Truly the freedom from self is humbling ourselves as children before our Heavenly Father in all the instances of life- certain and uncertain.  It awakens us to how our error of thinking to God's wisdom or ways of understanding.

Freedom of self is the love of God working in our life.  We leave the wisdom of the world to live in the life freeing wisdom of God.

 Ephesians 3: 17-19 says, “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will give you mighty inner strength through his Holy Spirit.  And I pray that Christ will be more and more at home in your hearts as you trust in him. May your roots go down deep into the soil of God’s marvelous love.  And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love really is.  May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it.  Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

This love overrides one’s own feelings that can be so easily swayed.   You don’t keep the light that is living in you captive to the flesh instead you let it live through you.  It is practicing and striving and surrendering to the presence and will of God then falling to self and every persuasive argument the world wants to oppress you by or philosophy of "It is all good."    

God teaches us to “die to self.”

   

Jesus said, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies it bears much fruit.  He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal.”       John 12:24-25

Forgetting self in God helps us live and discover the reason for this life: That we might know GOD more deeply. Live as an instrument for God.  Finding what it means to live in the perfect will of God. 

Jesus said “If you cling to your life, you will lose it; but if you give up your life for me, you will find it.” Matthew 10:39

“I beseech you therefore brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.  And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”  Romans 12:1-2