Christ calls us to die to our self life that we may be filled with His life and that life is abundant life. Our self life is, well, SELFishness. It puts us first, how we feel, what we think, what we want and think we need. It’s in these ways we must die to our carnal nature so that the Spirit, the nature of God can shine without hinderance. Romans 8 talks a lot about carnality verse the Spirit. The two are opposed to one another. It’s a matter of flesh and Spirit and we know that we are instructed to walk according to the Spirit and not of the flesh. We can choose to be self centered or God centered.
Today we hear an awful lot about “Self care”. What ever that means to a person, we are addressing one aspect of it, the need to escape, pamper or self indulge when life is overwhelming. There is nothing wrong with any one activity.. We are free in Christ and there is no law against shopping or pedicures .. For men.. Cars and hunting. This is not about calling our hobbies and releases sin. This message is about the heart and the disservice we can do to ourselves against the Lords work in us simply by ignorance of it or because we want to run from the purifying fire.
Have you ever seen how the sacrificial system in the old covenant correlates to us in the New? Those sacrifices were just shadows of our reality. We are those sacrifices. It is us who are to lay on the alter, as Christ laid on the cross. Willingly, without getting down off of it. The wood He laid on, is no different than the wood we are to lay on. He said no one takes His life, but that He gives it. God will not force us to lay our life down either, we must bend our will to give it. Romans 12 says that our reasonable service after receiving the cleansing of the blood of Jesus is to present ourselves as living sacrifices. We are to take up our own cross of death to self life that we might live for God, a life that is a pleasing aroma.
If no good thing dwells in us as it says in Romans 7:18 then we know that the only aroma that can be pleasing to God is that aroma of His Son Jesus. Our flesh stinks up the beautiful smell of our Saviour! It is by trials and tribulations in this life, that we learn to live from the Spirit of Jesus in us, rather than continuing to live from the carnal nature of Adam that is also in us. Then we are able to go around giving off the fragrance of Christ (2 Cor 2:15).
So when the heat is turned up in our life and we feel like we are backed in a corner and surrounded by wolves.. The world tells us it’s self care time. Time to do what ever pleases the flesh so you can escape these dreadful feelings. Only problem with that is, everything in this world is temporal. It’s so fleeting that the release we get, is temporary and tomorrow we find that yesterday’s self care can’t make up for today’s dread. It becomes a cycle much like encircling Mount Sanai. We are trying to reach the land of milk and honey by escaping though fleeting pleasures. Only to find, fleeting pleasures must be repeated over and over and over if we are to get any relief from the core of the problem. You can see the ineffectiveness of this kind of self care. It becomes a bit of self deceit for the Christian.
In moments of dread, of feeling backed in a corner, of sadness, loneliness, stress and whatever else life throws our way, there is no better cure than that of Jesus. It’s in these very times or trials that he would have us turn to Him and not to anything outside of Him. How well He is able to care for our soul and our Spirit. When we come to Him and lay our hearts discontent before Him and ask for Wisdom and Understanding to overcome these powerful emotions in us, He will do it. He will show us he root cause of what ever it is that is bringing us unrest.
Jesus addresses the root cause of unrest, He doesn’t just put a bandaid on us and call it a day, so that tomorrow when the bandaid falls off, we need another. Nope, He heals the root, what is causing the unrest inside of us, so that thing is no longer an issue. He heals us and makes us whole.
Oh the healing and the nearness of Christ that we miss out on by quick fixes and human ability! Let’s not cheat ourselves brothers and sisters of the healing that our Healer came into the world to give us. We are not healed experientially from the moment we professed faith in Jesus. We still have all our baggage and hurts that need dealt with. He will set us free from them all IF we come to Him and allow Him to handle our self care.
A coffee, tea, beer or a glass of wine can ease your woes in an instant. It can lull you into thinking that feeling is erased.. But honestly is it? If it were, why does it come up again? Yet we have a better drink made available to us! Christian, do you realize this?
In John 4 where Jesus is with the Samaritan women. She is talking of drawing water from an earthly well, which is our earthly releases. What we turn to for relief. Yet Jesus tells her that “Whoever drinks this water will thirst again”! He goes on to say “BUT whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life”!
Don’t we see that it is only by taking our every trial and our every awful emotion to Jesus, that we might find EVERLASTING release?! Let us not cut ourselves off from His healing waters by going to something temporal when we have access to something eternal.
Jesus doesn’t ask anything of us that He Himself has not gone before us in. What did He do when He escaped? He went off and prayed. What did He do with His life daily.. He only did the things His Father would and spoke the words His Father spoke. He was so free from the worlds bondage and it was because He was always about His Father’s business and never that carnal man. He was the last Adam that we might live out from the new man and no longer in bondage to the old carnal man.
One more thing that I have seen in my life. Feeling entitled to temporal releases, leads to coveting and often strife and contentions.. All which we are told are carnal and fleshly.. Things which we should avoid. As an example.. The mother who in her head all day, awaits her husband to return so she can pop some pop corn, watch Netflix and take a bath while dad handles bedtime. Well Her husband also has an idea in His head how he is going to come home and change the oil in his wife’s car. He comes home, says Hi, then heads out into the garage. He’s doing something for the wife that she probably doesn’t do herself.. And the wife peeks into the garage and asks what he is doing? She loses her temper and proceeds with contentious tones due to her striving after her coveting of a night to herself. The point is, her mentality of entitlement leads to all kinds of ungodliness. And then worse, we tend to justify the ungodliness because of our entitlement! Because we deserve that time alone, I was justified to give him a piece of my mind.
The heart is wicked, the bible says.. If it is not under control of the Holy Spirit, it is wicked. It is ungodly and justifies ungodliness all in the name of self.
The alternative? The wife speaks to God throughout the day, letting Him know her trials. She seeks living waters that satisfy the soul rather than an escape (which is only an illution) at the end of the day. When her husband comes home and goes out to the garage to change her oil, she is thankful for it. When he comes inside, she wants him to relax after working all day and coming home to serve her in a way she doesn’t do herself. She is at peace and she has put herself last. How is this?! The world says we should put ourselves first, if we don’t care for us, who will?!
As the disciples disputed who would be greatest in the kingdom of heaven in Mark 9, here is what Jesus says “If anyone desires to be first (greatest), he shall be last of all and servant of all.” Would you believe that putting yourself last carnally and bathing in Jesus everlasting spring of Life would bring you more contentment than striving after carnal pleasures in this world? Seeking to have others needs met first, just like Jesus did, would bring you lasting joy from day to day. No longer going to and fro to seek joy. You find joy right where you are, in this season and it’s trials. For wherever you are, Jesus says “Lo, I am with you always!”
God, grant us faith and eyes to see that all we need and could ever want is truly found in You. Let us not chase after the things of this world, rather let our hearts eyes be set on you until we can say along with Asaph in Psalm 73, “Whom have I in heaven but You?
And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You.”
The Fountain
Isaiah 55: 1
Ho ! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters;
And you who have no
money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine;
Without money and without cost.
You ever get to the place in life where you feel like you’re scratching the bottom of the barrel, you’re scrambling, exhausted, and left feeling completely feeble? Then it dawns on you!!! It’s time for me. otherwise stated, Me Time. We live in a society that rushes toward it, we’re off to the races, in search of something to fill us up, to refresh our spirit, to feel ALIVE!
But there is something so much deeper, so much more glorious, so much wider, an immeasurable supply that will forever be at our finger tips. It is only a prayer away, a prayer that sometimes turns into a cry that comes up from somewhere we barely know exists.
It’s a fountain, the fountain that flows from the throne of God.
We are part dust, and the other part of us? It’s God. He’s breathed life into our very nostrils, His spirit permeates the air in and around us. Far too often we want to refresh the dust part of our mortal selves. A facial is only skin deep, time to ourselves lasts only as long as that particular allotted amount of time.
Imagine, walking up to a waterfall, in the crisp cool mountain air, and standing under it, with your arms out stretched to heaven, and that crystal clear water running over you, down your face to your toes, until your very body is covered with that healing mountain water. It’s an earthly vison of what Christ can do for you spiritually.
The fountain that Christ offers you, isn’t temporary, it can’t be bought with a price, it will fill you up until you are over flowing. It will wash over your soul, and change your countenance. So often the quick fix we are longing for, searching for, is right at our finger tips.
It ought to become a habit of ours, when we feel that old familiar anxiety, clamoring to be set free, we need to stop, look up to the heavens, and remember that while our earthly body seems tired, we are in fact, divine creatures, made by the Almighty God Himself. He didn’t create us and then toss us out, no, He created us, and then offers us a never ending supply, of grace, and mercy, and wisdom, and strength. Strength to get through whatever life sends our direction. We have only to stop and ask Him for help, and while in the moment you may not feel Him, in hindsight you’ll look back and see where you left off, and He took over.
Into the Garden of the Lord 