how much should we focus on ourselves?
I had a really good church experience this Pentacost Sunday… Doug (one of the pastors at my church in Pittsburgh) talked about how Pentacost was all about Jesus being glorified through the disciples’ experience in Acts 2, and the ego-less-ness of Christianity hit me hard during his talk.
I have been thinking so much about self-improvement lately in many areas of my life, in order to be a more effective servant in Christ’s Kingdom… but today, I encountered something that originally attracted me to Christianity so much - the putting to death of one’s self and the literal living as a part of Christ’s resurrected body by the power of the Holy Spirit. The selflessness that comes from this type of transformation is truly remarkable - some of the most selfless people I’ve met have been Christians that have so been absorbed into Christ’s identity that their original self is just not that important anymore. This image can be so compelling…
…but as I ask in the title, does someone who has died to self in order to live in Christ still need to think about themselves? Or does thinking about oneself necessarily get your focus off of God and helping others? I’ve been thinking a lot about improving myself to glorify God and to help others more, but sometimes it feels like a bit too much… so much that today I felt convicted at church that I could be living as a part of Christ’s body much more than I currently am. Is it more of a balance in which you recognize that your own actions affect the world such that you should learn to control yourself better, while at the same time noting that too much focus on your actions can leave God out of the picture, leading to a dry spiritual existence? Or should you just forget about yourself completely, and trust that through that God will refine you?
I tend to lean towards the balance viewpoint, but I’m not sure… if I were to die to self, then I’d be dead. :)
2 years ago