Our Choice to Deny Self

10/7/2002

To a few: a prayer from Beyond Humiliation that reminded me once again of it being OUR choice to deny ourselves and pick up our cross daily. I can control what I let in and how I build in my life…“O my God, selfishness is Thy enemy. It is also mine, a mortal enemy bent on my destruction. Thou hatest selfishness, and I desire also to hate it. Thou hast commanded its destruction as Thou didst command the destruction of Agag (1Sam.15). Grant me grace not to spare this foe, but permit Thee to wage war upon it. If it hungers may I never feed it; if it thirsts may I never give it to drink. Undertake for me, O my God, and circumcise my heart with Thy two-edged sword, that I may henceforth be Thine and Thine alone.” Love, DL

Selfishness is God’s enemy and mine. If it hungers, may I never feed it; if it thirsts may I never give it to drink.

Selfishness: self life: the natural, the human, the mortal, the earth-bound, the carnal, the flesh: SELF.

To be clear, then, all that is of self in my life is God’s enemy as it is holding space and carrying weight that only He deserves and can properly fill. My *self* life (feelings, ideas, desires, emotions, goals, hopes, objectives, habits, patterns, wounds, pain, scars, born of and grown in my human nature) IS an enemy of Jesus in my life and our Relationship, or ability to have a Relationship.

Hating myself is identical to loving myself in its root of SELF; pumping up my confidence in myself with knowledge of even things about Jesus and His Kingdom by my striving and self-effort is entirely SELF-ish; laboring and even sacrificing pleasure to try to please God is yet SELF-life feeding its own ego.

When all is boiled down to the Root, there are only two foundations of a life: either our foundation is SELF trying to reach God for our own peace and satisfaction (though it is never this blatant to the mind of self; it appears to self as noble and sacrificial, as though we are doing God a favor by paying attention and “giving” to Him) OR the foundation is JESUS, the Lamb of God, to whom our entire beings declare:

“YOU are worthy to take the scroll and open its seals because *You were slain, and with Your Blood You purchased for God* persons from every tribe and language and people and nation. YOU have made them to be A KINGDOM AND PRIESTS to *serve* our God (not our selves), and they will reign on the earth.”

Jesus, the Master Builder, lays HIS Foundation in our lives: Himself. He knows what He is doing. He is worthy of our complete trust and utter yielding, abandoning, following. He *is* Good, and He *does* Good. Let go to the utter outer inner most! Daily and Together we will walk this out, all who are willing to let Him Reign as their *One and Only*! Yes?