Perhaps you’ve said this before, I’m not going to allow myself to ____________, I refuse to let myself __________, or possibly something like that at one point or another. Every night we go to sleep, we lose consciousness and in the morning when we wake up, we regain our consciousness again, we aren’t confused about who we are, thankfully our “self” awareness returns. Well, today I want to talk to you about me, you, us, ourselves. When you say “my_self” have you wrapped yourself around what it actually means spiritually? My_self. What is (self)? What does it mean to have possession of self? I want to discuss this, based on the truth I find in scripture pertaining to self. Self is defined in this way: The self is an individual person (as the object) of his or her own reflective consciousness.

I believe we can agree on what “self” is and what we are actually saying when we say things like…”myself“, or anything to do with self, self confidence, self gratification, self extaltation, self magnification, self glorification, self promotion even. My_self. Then you have self awareness right, that’s when we begin learning and understanding who we are honestly, both the good and the bad.

The first danger of self is self-focus, it takes our eyes off God and misplaces it on US. (The origin of this is clearly documented in Genesis, Adam and Eve instead of enjoying all the wonder God had given them, chose to look at themselves individually and seek something for their own satisfaction. You also see this behavior even earlier than that through Satans behavior (Him_self), in Ezekiel 28:15-17 & Isaiah 14:12-15). Self wants …..what IT wants. Its demanding, prideful and rebellious. My little children,you know it’s amazing to see, I never had to teach them to be selfish, they do it naturally. They literally fight, argue, hurt each other to defend what THEY want. It’s crazy to see it up close in our children. Jesus talks about self, Jesus tells those who wish to follow him about what they should do with(self), Jesus says DENY it. Just DENY what (self) wants. (Luke 9:23/ Matt 16:24)

Some translations say “turn from your SELFish ways”, Jesus is saying deny your (self) first, then pick up your cross (only through the cross and His POWER do we attain victory over this life). Do you understand this idea, deny? Some of these words are so overused today.

Deny is defined this way: To declare untrue; contradict. To refuse to believe; reject.

Jesus is telling us, hey DON’T trust yourself, its dishonest, reject it completely. Take on MY cross, DIE to self (Galations 2:20 right? I no longer Live but Christ lives in me). You have to be willing to give up everything, come to the end of self. Here is what else I know about self, only the full power of the Holy Spirit (The promise Jesus left us) can help us overcome (self). We don’t stand a chance against (self), only the continual, moment by moment power of the Holy Ghost helps us achieve this. In fact the enemy is so good at his lies right? He’ll say, YOU ARE strong enough, but we know this isn’t true at all.

This revelation has led me to one conclusion, I can no longer choose to believe in anything of (self). Nothing. I dont trust My_self. The Bible to me is clear, DENY self, completely, willingly, so that He could reveal his true glory through me. I refuse to buy into even self-confidence, God confidence yes, but self-confidence? Really? Who is whispering for me to have confidence in My self? No, Only Christ in me. Only the power of God’s presence in me, only relying on his complete and sovereign power.

Like the blades of grass and trees that exist only to reflect Gods glory, no self involved, no personal opinion fighting to interject Gods purpose, no personal belief in their own independent ability to exist,  completely surrendered to my creator.
Me, myself, denied.

I have always been a big proponent of positive energy and positive thinking. I love how Pastor Craig lays this down.