Genesis tells the story of our Creator and creation itself; God spoke into existence the world and all that is. Adam was created on the sixth day, made in the image of God Himself. Ohh the honour and privilege to be made in the image of God is a marvel all by itself. In Genesis 1:26 it says “Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness,” Vs 27 says “So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.”
To better understand why the need to die to ‘Self’ let’s start from the beginning to see how God created us and this need we now have. In Genesis 1:9 God created the dry ground. In Deuteronomy 32:4 it is said of God “He is the Rock, his works are perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God who does no wrong, upright and just is he.” This God, Our God, the one true God is indeed perfect. Anything that God creates is made perfect. He created the ground and the dust which man was formed out of. The dust was not living, man at this point was just a form, much like the clay pots that we see around us today.
The Epic part of this Creation Story is when God breathed into the nostrils of man with the Breath of Life, ‘AND MAN BECAME A LIVING THING’ a perfect creation of God made in His own Image, His perfect work. God breathed from within Himself into Adam. God the perfect God we know, the God of love, as mentioned in 1 John 4:8.
Being the God of love, Adam was not made to be a robot to worship God at His command or obey Him and Serve Him at His beckoning. This would have been a selfish act and as such an impossible thing for God to do. He is love and through love He created us with a will, a free will to choose who we will serve.
Adam was able to think and conclude, he made decisions, he named the animals, and he spoke with God. He wondered about the Garden of Eden. He was not mechanical. He was given a will, a choice.
So let’s recall….. so far we have said:
- A perfect God created the earth and ground.
- God used the dust from the earth to form Adam.
- God breathed the breath of life into his nostrils.
- God made us after His own image and likeness.
- Gods work is perfect
I believe it is safe to conclude that Adam was perfectly made. This is the man that God created to live on the earth, the man He told to multiply and fill the earth. Without the fall of man this is the kind of people that God wanted and expected to live on earth. This should have been you and me today. This is the Original Man! A man like God, made in the image of God, working for God, walking with God, communing with God, spending time with God, being obedient to God, following God and carrying out His instructions.
Hmmmm!! Isn’t this the man/woman God is calling us to be today? Is this not what God wants from you and me today? To be saturated with and by Him. This is the childlike (simple and elementary) state that God says we must be like in Matthew 18:3 “And he said: “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Children follow the instructions of their parent, a child does not worry about the bills, children trust that their parents will provide food for them to eat, to provide their clothing and a roof over their head. Little children are obedient to their parents. They are fully and totally dependent on their parents. This is how Jesus said we must be in order to enter into the kingdom of God.
SO WHAT WENT WRONG?
God had also created angels. God created Lucifer who we now call satan.
Ezekiel 28: 12 to 15 says
“‘You were the seal of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. 13 You were in Eden,
the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: carnelian, chrysolite and emerald,
topaz, onyx and jasper, lapis lazuli, turquoise and beryl.[b]Your settings and mountings[c] were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 14 You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.
15 You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created till wickedness was found in you.
16 Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned.
So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of God, and I expelled you, guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones. 17 Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor.”
Lucifer was on Gods Holy Mount, a guardian Cherub! Lucifer’s focus began to turn away from God and unto himself! As his heart developed pride of self for the beauty he was; as his heart became filled with himself, his wisdom, his voice, his singing, maybe even with the precious stones that adorned him, he became proud. He began to see less and less the need for God as he got filled with self. Like a cup, under a tap, getting filled with water, so too pride filled Lucifer!
God was shut out of his life and as such his heart, for we can only serve ONE master. Satan began to esteem himself greater and greater, ‘self’ elevates a person above the need of God. ‘Self’ pushes God out, ‘self’ is evil. God cannot exist where self habitates. What satan failed to realize was that once cut off from the tree the vine perishes.
He got so caught up with himself he lost sight of the source of life. He became blind in his ways. He had no more light in him. He lost the light of God, the lifeline of all creations. Self is foreign to God, it is alien to God.
Now filled with self, satan began to conceive selfish thoughts and ideas. He became envious of God, he coveted the position of God. He wanted to be worshipped and praised. He wanted to be like God. Here all evil and malicious thought were birthed. Thoughts to overthrow God and all who choose to follow and serve him.
His heart was filled with continual evil, pure evil. He began to deceive angels and talk against God. He could no longer reverence God, this cannot happen where self exists. He lied and is called the Father of all lies. The Pride of Self flowed through his being which led him to fight in heaven wanting the throne of God.
Isaiah 14: 12-14 says
“How you have fallen from heaven, morning star, son of the dawn!
You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!
13 You said in your heart, “I will ascend to the heavens; I will raise my throne
above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly,
on the utmost heights of Mount Zaphon.[b]14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High.”
Lucifer had many “I Will” in his thoughts! Unfortunately many of us today have these ‘I’ and ‘I Will” in our thoughts too.
‘I’/‘Self’ takes away everything that make a man serve, follow, worship, praise and reverence God. Self puts away God period! The pride of self that started in Lucifer’s heart does not stand alone. It births other evil. To operate self needs fruits, fruits like corruption, sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery (excessive indulgence in sensual pleasures), idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, discord (disagreement between people), jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambitions, dissensions (disagreement that leads to discord), factions (a party or group (as within a government) that is often contentious or self-seeking), envy, bitterness, drunkenness and orgies and the like.
These product of self, yields nothing good. They are opposite and contrary to all good that comes only from Almighty God.
James 3:16 says “16 for where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.”
These ways are completely opposite to the man God created in the Garden of Eden.
SO WHAT IS SELF?
Self as defined is “self is an individual person as the object of its own reflective consciousness”, “self is a person’s essential being that distinguishes them from another”.
‘Self’ distinguishes us from others, it ‘distinguishes’ us from God it’s the object of its own reflective consciousness’. This has caused heaven to loose many angels, it has caused the world to become the state in which we now live.
Are you satisfied with death? Are you satisfied with pain, with lost, murder, infidelity, adultery and sickness to name a few?
Are you satisfied with children being mutilated, family members being murdered?
Are you satisfied with the sorrow and depression in our world?
Are you satisfied with wasted lives to drugs and alcohol, with the many addictions that happen all around us?
Are you satisfied with the demoralizing sexually explicit conducts of our youths?
Are you satisfied only knowing that you were made to live eternal?
Adam yielded to satan and in so doing he gave satan dominion to the earth. We now living the reality of all that came along with that decision. Adam gave in to self through deceit and did not stand for God, he disobeyed God, he did not follow God’s instruction and did not abide in Godly principles.
Adam was thought by God Himself. He spoke to God directly yet he lost focus of God and yielded to his own selfish desires, to his own reasoning; he made his own decision, a man’s decision.
Ephesians 5:1 says “Follow God’s example, therefore, as dearly loved children.”
The apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians 11:1 “1 Follow my example, as I follow the example of Christ.”
Jesus said in John 14:9 “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” In John 10:30 Jesus said “ I and the Father are one.”
We are called to follow Jesus, Jesus and His Father are one. So then what do we know of God?
- God is spirit – John 4:24
- God is trustworthy – Hebrews 13:8
- God is love – 1 John 4:8
- God is Righteous – Psalms 119:137
- God is Holy – Isaiah 6:3
- God is Merciful – Luke 6:36
- God is Forgiving and Good – Psalms 86:5
- God is compassionate – Psalms 145:9
WE CANNOT BE ANY OF THESE IS WE HAVE NOT DIED TO SELF SO THAT CHRIST MAY ABIDE IN US!
Self and God cannot live in the same heart. Selfhood has to be surrendered and nailed to the cross. We must be like dead men, nothing you tell a dead man will generate a reaction out of him. We must die to self-purpose and follow god’s purpose for our lives.
We must die to what we want, die to doing what we want, die to pride of life, to feeling offended, to feeling embarrassed. Self, Selfhood must be replaced with Jesus and God.
SELFHOOD: “Our sense of well-being, of contentedness, of meaningfulness, of how we perceive our personal identity – all these relate directly to the individual’s notion of selfhood. Without that sense of self there’s nothing to which we might hope to attach, or attribute to, those same states. Yet when we look at our own sense of selfhood, we find that our understanding is somewhat shaky. We can’t quite grasp that self within which we believe somehow inhabits our mind and body, or is identical with them as an interrelation of the two.”
These are some very choice words to describe ‘Selfhood’. “Without that sense of self there’s nothing to which we might hope to attach, or attribute to”. To the world this is true but for Christians we know that it is Christ in us that fills the vacated spot that ‘self’ once existed!
The formed man from the dust in Genesis 2, this man, after life was breathed into his nostrils, had the likeness of God and was created by a perfect God.
This is the man that God intended to live on earth and multiply.
Self came through satan, it is satans ways and character. Where self is God cannot be, God cannot exist. Self will never allow us to have the promises only available through our God and our Saviour Jesus. The gift of Eternal Life among many others blessings.
If this is what you want? Then it is evident that self, in you, must die. The will of God must be executed in your life in all that constitutes your entire existence. There is no other way. Anything short of this is a form or godliness. It will not allow God to see His son in you and that is what the Father is looking for.
He will not look for Stacey or Roberto, He will look to see Christ in us!
1 John 2:6 says “The one who says he abides in Him ought to walk in the same manner as He walked.”
Won’t you walk with God!
Won’t you put aside the nature of self that derived and was indeed birthed by satan?
Self was never the creation of God!
Jesus told the apostles “Follow Me”, He did not say “You come along”! He never addressed the residing being to be a part of His walk. That object of its own reflective consciousness, that essential being, that personal identity was not invited to be. They were invited to ‘FOLLOW’ (go or come after (a person or thing proceeding ahead). We are called to ‘SERVE’ (perform duties or services for (another person or an organization).
Luke 4:8 “8 Jesus answered, “It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’
Neither ‘FOLLOW’ nor ‘SERVE’ have any attributes linked to SELF. It is doing for someone else. One’s self, and the goal of one’s own action, should not be a person’s motive. Your motive should be in complete disregard for you, yourself, your acts, and your interests; but a complete regard for God, God’s will, God’s choice, God’s command and God’s instruction. This is the reason ‘the God of love’ gave us a ‘Free Will’. The capacity to choose our own course of action.
Philippians 2:3 says “3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.”
Do nothing out of SELFISH AMBITION or vain conceit!
Again: The will of God must be executed in your life in all that constitutes your entire existence. There is no other way. Anything short of this is a form or godliness. It will not allow God to see His son in you and that is what the Father is looking for.
You who have an ear let him hear.
God gives us warnings and reproofs.
The gap between where we are now spiritually and where God wants us to be must be closed.
Take the necessary steps and make space for God!
WE ALL NEED GOD!!!!
Becoming Christlike !!! 