Fear Ourselves.

In today's society we are taught that to love ourselves is important. We are taught NOT to care about what OTHER'S think. We are told that self-esteem is very important and a lack of it not good at all. We are expected to walk the fine line between self-esteem and arrogance. If we cross that fine line and slip into arrogance we are told that is very wrong. A healthy self-love is necessary to a good life- this is what people say. Yet I think it's fair to say (though I could be far off the mark here) that a whole lot of people have very little self-love. Another fine line exists there where self-loathing and self-acceptance exists. We are caught up in this stuff because the WORLD tells us we should be caught up in it.  We are told we should be HAPPY.  We are told we should be CONTENT. We are told we are missing out on life's true potential when we don't obtain an equilibrium in our existence.  WE ARE TOLD ENTIRELY TOO MUCH BY THE WORLD. 

Unfortunately we tend to listen to the world. Even if we listen in rebellion and by bucking the common opinion- we tell ourselves we stand out among the status quo, but then we are joined by others who flaunt their rebellion against society and we've joined another group.  You don't care what the world says? Good! You want to walk to the beat of your own drum? Not so good. As long as we are SELF-focused in any way whether in joining the common opinion or bucking it, we are not walking in God's way.

We fool ourselves though. We lie to ourselves and say our particular views are okay, why? Because we're good people. We care about others, we do our share, we are genuinely kind and generous. We are focused on OURSELVES! We have to get OUT of ourselves. We have to get OUT of our own way, yet how to do that when we cannot escape ourselves? We have to LET another do all that we cannot do.

Very much contrary to popular opinion- we have to care about what OTHERS think-  the OTHERS being- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit.  When we stop caring about what they think we are truly lost because we've let ourselves and our own opinion usurp the place of our Creator, our Redeemer, our Holy Comforting One.

Let's read another excerpt from 'The Spiritual Man' By Watchman Nee.

'The call of the cross of the Lord Jesus is to beckon us to hate our natural life, to seek opportunity to lose, not to keep, it.

(Insert- Luk_9:23  And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.

Joh_12:25  He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal.)

Our Lord wants us to sacrifice self and be yielded wholly to the working of His Spirit.

(Insert- Mat 10:20  For it is not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father which speaketh in you. )

If we are to experience afresh His true life in the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit, we must be willing to present to death every opinion, labor and thought of the soul life.

The Lord additionally touches upon the issue of our hating or loving our self life.

The soul is invariably “self-loving.”

Unless from the very depth of our heart we abhor our natural life, we shall not be able to walk genuinely by the Holy Spirit.

Do we not realize that the basic condition for a spiritual walk is to fear our self and its wisdom and to rely absolutely upon the Spirit?'

*******

Fear ourselves.

Fear our wisdom.

Rely absolutely upon the Spirit.

This is TRUTH.

Such a stark contrast to what the world would have us do.

Do you fear yourself?

Do you fear your wisdom?

Do you absolutely rely upon the Spirit?

By the GRACE and MERCY of our LORD and SAVIOR, JESUS CHRIST alone may we have the hope of relying upon the Spirit absolutely!