Pop psychology and political correctness have *hijacked* Christianity. Self esteem. Self acceptance. Self love. The whole world is on a crusade to convince us that we would all be happier and more content if we would just love ourselves more.
The Bible does indeed have alot to say about self......things like deny your self. Mortify the deeds of this body....(that means *Kill Yourself* in today's language). If you want to live you have to die. No man has ever hated his own flesh (self)....but he loves it and nourisheth it. We don't have low self esteem. No, we don't. We love ourselves. The Bible says we do. Ephesians 5:29 . We all love ourselves, and way too much.
The second greatest commandment is to love your neighbor as yourself. Notice He didn't say love yourselves He knew we already do that and quite well thank you. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as much as we love ourselves because we love ourselves so much. He knew if we loved and served others like we do ourselves there would be no problems.
The world is upside down. The very thing that it seeks is the very thing God tells us to kill. Self seeking,self gratification,self esteem self importance all this selfishness is unBiblical. Very unBiblical. In fact the Bible says “let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves” (Phil. 2:3). If you want to be first you have to make yourself last. John the Baptist prayed that he would decrease so our Lord could increase, and finally ....Jesus Christ our perfect example knew exactly what to do with this flesh. He became a servant and allowed his *self* to be nailed to a cross
Excellent post.
ReplyDeleteAgree, once again. Very thought provoking.
ReplyDeleteQuite what I was actually just thinking. Christianity is popular as long as there is very little sacrifice, and if there is sacrifice, on your own terms, not God's.
ReplyDeleteYou nailed it. This message of self denial is not on the popular list today,. But how we need it!!!
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I've actually been thinking about this a lot lately. How can so called Pentecostals claim to LOVE their 'un-saved' neighbor by ignoring them because of sleeve length, hair length, skirt or pant length? Who gave man the right to judge the heart by outward appearance? I am not saying there should be no standards, but standards should not be used as a judging tool to judge whether or not we love our neighbors. I fear, sometimes, that it is. Pentecost needs a change of heart. Everyone's view of 'self sacrifice' is different. And that is between you and God, not for other 'so called' 'Pentecostals' to judge. We should love our neighbors regardless of whether we can relate to them through religion, dress, etc. or not. How come Pentecostals have such a problem with that???? God help us!
ReplyDelete-Ann
Very good!
ReplyDeleteSelf sacrifice is rarely refered to in teachings now-a-days.
Thank you all for the comments, one more thing that I thought about was that when thinking about how selfish we all are, we tend to want to deny ourselves or somehow bring ourselves under subjection to Christ but too much of this kind of introspection is in reality more *selfishness*.
ReplyDeleteSubtle little trick the enemy likes to play, we get disgusted with self and so we try to save self and deny self, sacrifice more, give up more plesures,dress more modestly....but sadly when we do this we are still focused on SELF!!! We cant punish ourselves enough to earn His love, we have to die completely.
It is no longer I that lives but Christ in me...