Don’t Be Self-ish By Bryan Craig

Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.  Ephesians 4:22-24 ESV

Years ago, I was on a mission trip, far from home, and it was a bit unsettling to me.  I was in a foreign country, way out of my element, and I was already missing my family.  Then, in our first session with the people to whom we were ministering, I didn’t get to speak a word.  The next morning, I was having a “pity party”, and I was reading an Oswald Chambers devotional, where these words jumped off the page, “All self-pity is from the devil.”  It hit me right between the eyes.  I realized I was playing into the enemy’s tactics, focusing on myself and my insecurities and my neediness, forgetting that I was on a mission from Him.  I straightened up my attitude and the rest of the trip was great.  And guess what?  God used me.

I’ve never forgotten this, and I believe it to be true.  Recently, I was reading another Oswald Chambers entry, and he went as far as to say that we need to be careful about “self-awareness.”  He writes:

God intends for us to live a well-rounded life in Christ Jesus, but there are times when that life is attacked from the outside. Then we tend to fall back into self-examination, a habit that we thought was gone. Self-awareness is the first thing that will upset the completeness of our life in God, and self-awareness continually produces a sense of struggling and turmoil in our lives. Self-awareness is not sin, and it can be produced by nervous emotions or by suddenly being dropped into a totally new set of circumstances. Yet it is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him.

I didn’t like this quote when I first read it.  I think it challenged me because I spend a lot of time in my journal doing self-reflection and self-examination.  I always thought this was good, especially as I think of Psalm 139:23-24:

Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!

Or I think about Paul’s instruction about examining ourselves:

Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!  2 Corinthians 13:5 ESV

But I think I am starting to understand what Oswald is talking about.  The more we think of ourselves, the less room there is to think about Christ.  And he says we need to be “complete in Christ.”  It reminds me of the prayer Pete McKenzie jokingly said that he prays, “I know I’m not much, Lord, but I’m all I think about.”

There are many verses about denying self.  Here’s a few:

Jesus speaking: And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.  Luke 9:23 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.  Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Philippians 2:3-4 ESV

Ephesians 4 quoted above talks about the “new self”, with a renewed mind, one that looks more like Christ.  This new self is one that can walk in confidence, knowing we belong to Him and that He is meeting all of our needs, physically, emotionally, spiritually.  The more we are renewed and begin walking in this identity, the less “selfish” we will be. 

You are probably like me.  When you think of “selfishness”, you probably think of someone who narcissistic, just considering themselves, wanting to be served, rather than serve. “Oh, that’s not me.  I’m not selfish.”   It was eye-opening to me to think that when I’m having a pity party, playing the victim, beating my self up, disqualifying myself, listening to the enemy’s lies, trying to please others… all of these things are also symptoms of a self-consumed life.

This is where we must daily be “transformed by the renewing of our mind” (Romans 12:2) and “take every thought captive and make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:5)  When we stop all of this self-chatter in our minds, get our eyes off ourselves and onto Him and others, we find freedom and the life Christ intends us to live.  Then, He can use us, just like I described on my mission trip.  Perhaps He’s speaking to you as you read this.  Maybe you, like me, need to put to death the old self, so you can walk in your new self, re-created in Christ.

I agree with Oswald’s assertion: It is never God’s will that we should be anything less than absolutely complete in Him.