Christian Living

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Larry Lilly's Letter Wednesday August 6, 2008

The list of luminaries who have commented on the continuing battle against the SELF is long, but one thought runs through them all; in order to gain the slightest modicum of peace an organized rigid discipline must be engaged in against the dominance of SELF in our daily life.

Yesterday I quoted the Christian mystic, A.W. Tozer on the subject. By mystic I do not mean spooky, but simply a Christian who truly believes God hears and answers prayer and that the cultivation of the spiritual life is worthwhile. For many the Christian life begins and ends with a few formulas.

On what I consider the other end of the spectrum, the world's most well known modern Christian evangelist, Billy Graham, stated on the subject of SELF:

"I believe unself-consciousness is characteristic of the fruit of the Holy Spirit."

The thought behind this statement and for these essays is the negative awareness of our self as seen by others. Am I using the correct fork? Is my choice of clothes appropriate? What do they think about my speaking style? You get the idea. Equally destructive is the self-thought, I really am wonderful and I know it, in spite of what ignorant people may think.

In past years an abnormal emphasis was placed by many Bible believing people on the outward appearance and this resulted, tragically, in less importance being given to the cultivating of the inner person, the spirit. The lack of true spirituality has/is ending in the contradictory title, "Christian Celebrity." In many "Christian" gatherings it is becoming increasingly harder to figure out whether we are listening to Paris Hilton sing about Jesus or a religious clone of the late Liberace with all of his absurd orientations. This is due to a total lack of spiritual discernment in the minds and hearts of men and women rooted and grounded in SELF, rather than being controlled by the Holy Spirit.

The ten Boom sisters, Corrie and Betsy, were enabled to live a glowing testimony for Jesus Christ in Hitler's concentration camps due, not to any celebrity status, but by the Holy Spirit coupled with a life commitment to Jesus Christ, hiding Jews from the SS, which resulted in their being arrested and placed in the camps. Besty was murdered while in the camps, but thankfully Corrie survived to tell the story in her famous book/movie, "The Hiding Place."

There seems to be an organized refusal to obey the implicit order of Christ concerning discipleship that demands the crucifixion of self, the denying of self daily while taking up our cross and following Him. James, our Lord's brother touched on this when he stated in James 1:22:

"But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

For the purpose of this letter the emphasis is on the last phrase of the verse; "deceiving your own SELVES."

Larry Lilly Copyright © 2008 Use with credit

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