In our Christian culture there is a term which is thrown around often but I truly believe it is not understood, hence it not being performed as it should. The Christian culture all around the world is viewed poorly, mostly because of the way we act. There is a little known fact about communication which states 80% of what you say is not coming out of your month. Actions speak volumes about what kind of person you are and what is actually leading you in your life. Christ calls us to lay down our life to serve one another. Often times the phrase used to describe this action is "die to yourself."
Dying to yourself means removing the selfishness from your lifestyle. Selfishness has many different faces and therefore cannot be explained with a single action of desire.
The action of removing your selfishness can take on many different appearances, but what lies at the heart of it is conquering three attributes of Christ. You can check yourself in the process of changing the desires of your heart by asking yourself if you have adopted those attributes and by studying Gods word. Ask yourself – Am I speaking/showing Gods truth and love in everything I say and do? Am I glorifying God the most I possibly could in this situation with my words and actions? Am I ministering to the people with my words and actions? There are no accounts of Christ ever speaking or doing anything which did not show his fathers love, glorify God and minister to someone (please pay attention – this does not say "or minister" because Christ did all three). Though we are not Christ nor will our earthly bodies every be perfect as Christ was, Christlike is what we have all been created to be.
Attribute one – Am I speaking/showing Gods truth and love in everything I say and do? If any of your read the blog "Scripture Speaks," you would remember me making a statement about how scripture is infallible because it is the word of God. As it says in Numbers 23:19, God is not human and cannot lie. God is perfect and sinless. Therefore doing things against the truth of scripture is simple wrong because it is defiant against Gods truth. Truth is only half of it though. Matthew 22:37-40, Mark 12:29-31 and Luke 10:28 all say, "The most important commandment is this…Love the LORD with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. No other commandment is greater than these." Jesus commands this very specifically because love covers all aspects of the laws of Moses and other prophets and all aspects of the ten commandment.� When you are truly acting in love you would not break any of the laws of the prophets or the ten commandments. God has created love to be our greatest desire and the most powerful emotion and weapon. 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 explains love better than anything I can say. However the end of the chapter says, "And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love."
Scripture is the perfect description of how love is to be acted out in our life. All too often people don't take scripture in the literal sense. Although this takes much discernment and many hours of studying, the description of a Christlike life can be found in full detail in the bible. But our culture likes to do this really interesting thing where we take the bible out of context to explain the way we live. However God inspired the writing of the bible and meant for it to be taken in context to itself and to be used as a tool to check our self to see how far from truth we are. How often do you actually check yourself with scripture rather than prove yourself with scripture? If you spend enough time in scripture, you can prove or disprove anything you want with out of context scripture. But the design of scripture is to guide and guard, not guilt and grant for your personal gratification or edification.
Attribute two – Am I glorifying God the most I possibly could in this situation with my words and actions? To be honest when the first concept is mastered, the other two are irrelevant because they would happen naturally. This is a very cyclic system where they all play into one another, not off one another. Think about it, if you are truly living the truth of scripture you would not be doing anything which does not glorify God. However, it is very easy in simple conversation to say things which do not feed the Holy Spirit which lives in each of us. Often times we can speak things of darkness into existence, which makes me very sad. Our words hold high value to God and can often not declare His glory.
Think about those times when you do something and soon after you think of a better way it could have been done which would have been less self serving and more selfless. Through our actions we can bring more glory to God by serving His people in the same selfless manner which Christ served us. No where does it talk about Christ doing anything for himself and intentionally not including people in what he was doing. Even when Christ went up the mountains to be with his Father, there is no record of him telling people they could not come with him. My postulation is they simply didn't want to climb a mountain, not because Christ told them they couldn't come. Jesus never did anything for himself because it is not what was best for the whole of creation much less the body of believers. When you look in to a situation and try to figure out how to respond, we need to train our mind to see the other people in the situation more and see our self less.
For example, how often do we pray for healing for someone and selfishly ask God to heal this person but then stop there? We know sickness and pain are not from God. However if the book of Job teaches nothing else, it shows how God allows those things in our lives but is not the cause. Why does He allow it you might ask? So His name may be glorified and also because they are a result of our sin. When we allow sinful things into our heart, it creates a door for evil to come in and grow into pain, hurt and sickness. God allows those things to grow so when He conquers them His name is glorified more and because we continue to live in the sin which is allowing the evil in. Though God is capable of miracles and instant healing, He will only do it if it is His will and if He will receive the most glory when it happens. So I challenge you to stop asking for God to do something for you and start asking Him which sin in your life needs to be remove to have the pain and sickness leave with it. And thank Him for those things in your life because ultimately His name will be glorified when He defeats the evil and allows you to conquer the sin in your life. I know for me, I would much rather go through those painful things or sicknesses than have someone else go through them because I want to suffer the pain of my sins if it means someone else does not have to. The less people who have to suffer under sin, the more glorified Gods name is.
Attribute three – Am I ministering to the people with my words and actions? Unfortunately false teaching has become very real in our world. The new testament warns us about this many times and in some ways enables us to be discerning about false teaching and false prophets. Often times false teaching is presented in a manor which sounds glorious and spirit lead. But the whole theory of this third attribute is to simply be an example of Christ. By living out the Christ like life style you reach the hearts of all peoples, in all nations, of all cultures everywhere in the kingdom of God. But because of our sinful hearts and the things rooted in us which are not Christ there are often two voices which reach our thoughts when we are trying to live this out. When we sit down and ask God for anything, somewhere in our heart there is a selfish desire. This means we have a self serving response which is desired. Often times the first response you hear is the selfish one coming from your heart. But because this response is so nice we often accept it as the word of God and speak it out in His name saying things like – "God told me…" or "The Holy Spirit gave me these words…."
I think one thing people are really scared to do is question God. But this comes from a misunderstanding of our Fathers heart. God is OK with you questioning Him because when you do, it means you are seeking Him more and seeking His guidance. When you receive a response or word "from God" it is honestly much better to question it and ask Him if it is truly fro Him than to speak out something not of truth in His name. If God has truly spoken to you and given you words to speak, He will make it very clear the message is from Him. But when you receive those words and you seek God on it but you still have the doubt in your heart, it probably should not be spoken in haste. When God chooses to speak through you, He will not leave you with doubt or question, He will open your mouth and speak. In Matthew 15:8-20 it talks about this very specifically. Isaiah 29:13 and Matthew 15:8-9 says, "These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God." We might be ministering to people through our words with the right intentions, but if they are not truly from God, they are a farce and it blasphemes His name.
Matthew 15:11 continues and says, "It is not what goes into your mouth which defiles you; you are defiled by the words which come out of your mouth." Having those selfish responses enter your mind and mouth are not the sin, it is speaking them out as if they were truth and/or speaking them out in Gods name is the sinful part. Verses 18-20 say, "But the words you speak come from the heart-which is what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying and slander. These are what defile you…" We live with evil in our heart because of the sin in our lives. Because we live with evil in our heart, we receive things from our heart but often confuse them with things from God. But words are not the only thing which minister to people.
As I said at the beginning actions speak volumes and often your actions speak when your mouth isn't. By claiming to be living in the Spirit of God and claiming to be serving Him but doing this clearly against His word and law, you misrepresent the body of Christ. By saying those things you are proclaiming you are an example of God and His perfect son Jesus. Acting sinfully but proclaiming Gods name in the act does not properly minister Gods word to the people. This is another way of false teaching. Most of the worlds populations learns things by observation. Therefore if you are going to be ministering to people, your actions should minister to them as much or more than your words.
Continue seeking Him. He has a plan for your life and it is far better than your plan for your life.
As He leads me,
Jason
