The Self & The Selfless: One

Intro:

Jesus told us how we are to view Him, others and ourselves and how we should feel about it too. We are not to allow ourselves to become arrogant and "high and mighty" especially in light of the fact that The One who could've, didn't allow Himself to become that way while He was here on earth, and He did so to serve as an example for us. On the flip side of the coin, we are not just interplanetary refuse spinning around a galactic core, in a vast cosmic void for the sake of giggles either. We have a distinct and apportioned value and purpose given to us by God, Creator of the κόσμος/Kosmos which is by definition an orderly and harmonious system. The One who created the orderly system created its components. A defense for an intelligent creator or intellegence built into the creation itself, even at the macrocosmic level. Even more interesting is that the entire universe, the earth, everything seems as if it was created to support human life, it is called the Anthropic Principle (Doesn't this fact seem to allude to importance given to humans in general? More on this later.)

Low Self Esteem:

The idea of low self-esteem is relatively common today. There are many with crippling inferiority complexes. Sometimes the origin of these issues arose from childhood. Perhaps they arose more recently because of a broken relationship or failed marriage. The pressure of today’s competitive society makes matters worse. When people are politically or economically oppressed, as today in some cases, people feel demeaned and often worthlessness. Racial or sexual prejudices can contribute to inferiority as does the idea of being redundant in a system or organization and released from employment because of this to "downsize". These kinds of oppression can degrade anyone’s confidence. Technology can demote a person’s value also by making job positions unnecessary or they can do a job more accurately more often in an automated process that most of todays manufacturing is geared toward (even men are not).

Inflated Self Esteem:

The other extreme of this takes a pendulous swing in the other direction. The attitude is that you are to be full of yourself, or your sole need is to fulfill yourself; the attitude that life is short and you need to take advantage of it even if it means using and stepping on others. Nothing in life is more important than you. The power in self-affirmation and self-thinking has even transcended the church walls and has infiltrated the church. Feeling good about you is fine. Making yourself the entire and complete focus of your life in the church atmosphere is not. Self-help gurus and even some motivational speakers passing themselves of as pastors in a pulpit tell us that if “we” put “our” minds to something, “we” can do anything. Can someone please tell me where God is in that statement? Today’s culture has created a religion of positive psychology. A worship of self is all over the public theater. Intrinsic goodness of humans is assumed and coddled.

What The Bible Says:

Many Christians have been victimized by both of these "religions" (self belief systems). We are lured into them by the misunderstanding that we are to love ourselves. How so you ask? Many seem to misinterpret Deuteronomy 6:5 where it says to: “Love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” This is later reiterated by Jesus Christ and elaborated on in the New Testament in Luke 10:27, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind'; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.” Does it then say love yourself? No, it doesn’t and this is where people make an assumption that is wrong. They read something into the text that is not there...and it burns them badly. Nowhere does it say this in the Bible. Love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself, for as Paul said in the context about marriage, no man hates his own body. If we look at the Greek in these verses the word for “love” is [Greek: agapao; agape] or [Hebrew: 'ahab; raheb ]. These loves are loves of self-sacrifice and for the service of others. They cannot therefore be used to refer to one’s self. The idea of sacrificing to love ourselves is ludicrous or at worst narcissistic (clearly not Christian demeanor).

As a matter of fact loving self is kind of counter-Christian. As a Christian we are called to a life of self-denial, self-giving or outright sacrifice and this is a tough pill for many to swallow. Somehow many glance right over Jesus’ statement:

“If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me”. Mark 8:34

So what must we do? What is the imperative, our imperative? We must die to self and commit ourselves wholly to God. Even this is not that easy because there are three different types of deaths and resurrections in a Christian’s life and they need to be distinguished so that they can be recognized for what they are.

Continued in Part Two (next post:------>)