2 CORINTHIANS 5:14-15 – For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.”
THEME OF THE DAY: IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM AND OTHERS. In Paul David Tripp’s book Marriage: Six Gospel Commitments Every Couple Needs to Make he wrote, “The DNA of sin is selfishness. Sin turns all of us in on ourselves. It reduces our circle of hopes and concerns to things that touch and involve us. It makes us all focused on and driven by our wants, needs, and feelings. Sin can so fill our eyes with our needs that we become functionally blind to the needs of others. We can be so focused on our interest that we have little interest in the interest of others.”
The most miserable of Christians, or even non-Christian, is the selfish person. When a person is all consumed with how they feel, what they want, what they don’t have, their circumstances, their trials, their troubles, and making all of life orbit around the small, very small, world of “me, my, and mine”, this is a depressed, negative, and miserable person. Why? Selfishness. Being selfish is against the created order and when anything is against the created order, nothing good is produced, and certainly not happiness or contentment.
Conversely, the most joy filled Christian is the selfless person. It is the believer who rightly understands what salvation is; a transfer of ownership, complete, to the Lordship of Jesus – And if you call on him as Father who judges impartially according to each one’s deeds, conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile, knowing that you were ransomed from the futile ways inherited from your forefathers, not with perishable things such as silver or gold, but with the precious blood of Christ, like that of a lamb without blemish or spot (1 Peter 1:17-19). If we don’t get this foundational truth cemented in our understanding of what happened to us when we became a Christian, we won’t grasp the daily warfare that is occurring within us – the battle of wills, nor will we know how to win the battle daily – submission to Him who bought us by His blood.
The most joy filled Christian is also the one who knows he or she is bought by Christ to live for the interests of Christ and others. Self-interests take a “far back seat on the bus of life” – Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others (Philippians 2:3-4) and For I have no one like him, who will be genuinely concerned for your welfare. For they all seek their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ (Philippians 2:20-21). When we make decisions on the uses of our discretionary time and resources based on the pronoun “I” and personal desires instead of “Him” and His desires, don’t look any further to the cause of low levels of joy. If we place self above the Lord Jesus, we not only forget we were bought to be owned by Him but our lives are lived for Him and others, and not part of our lives, but all of our lives.
So, joy. We each want to walk in the excitement and power of the joy of the Lord, and He has provided for it. It all begins with grasping becoming a Christian, and living as a Christian is a call to selflessness, not to continue in a life of selfishness.
PRAYER: “Father, help me to live my life consistently for a cause bigger than me – Your will.”
QUOTE: “Each day we fight a battle. It is for the heart and the combatants are our wills versus God’s will.”
In the affection of Christ Jesus,
Pastor Jim