Self Awareness vs. Christ-awarness

My Utmost for His Highest - August 20

“Whenever anything begins to disintegrate your life with Jesus Christ, turn to Him at once, asking Him to re-establish your rest. Never allow anything to remain in your life that is causing the unrest. Think of every detail of your life that is causing the disintegration as something to fight against, not as something you should allow to remain. Ask the Lord to put awareness of Himself in you, and your self-awareness will disappear. Then He will be your all in all. Beware of allowing your self-awareness to continue, because slowly but surely it will awaken self-pity, and self-pity is satanic. Don’t allow yourself to say, "Well, they have just misunderstood me, and this is something over which they should be apologizing to me; I’m sure I must have this cleared up with them already." Learn to leave others alone regarding this. Simply ask the Lord to give you Christ-awareness, and He will steady you until your completeness in Him is absolute…..If we try to overcome our self-awareness through any of our own commonsense methods, we will only serve to strengthen our self-awareness tremendously. Jesus says, "Come to Me . . . and I will give you rest," that is, Christ-awareness will take the place of self-awareness. Wherever Jesus comes He establishes rest— the rest of the completion of activity in our lives that is never aware of itself.”

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I believe this to be a plague in the modern American - including the plague in my own heart. Self-Awareness always begins with SELF...isn't there a magazine called "Self"?... We are (I am) self-focused, self-centered, self-important, self-confident, self-sustaining, self-indulgent, self-motivated, self-made, self-corrected, self-loved. It is very interesting to me the Oswald Chambers calls "Self-Pity" satanic - I completely agree. If we are trusting in ourselves, we are not trusting in God. If we are focused on ourselves, we cannot focus on God nor on what calls us to focused on - namley others. That is why the second chapter of Philippians so stings my conscience - "2:5-8 -Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death— even death on a cross! Christ, the King of Kings, the creator of everything, the Everlasting God - humbles himself - becoming human and subjecting himself to our mistreatment and finally our execution. Christ is the ultimate example of humility. From the manger, to the footwashing, to the thorns, to trash dump where he was killed. He subjected himself to God's will - gave his Self up to God's will. Maybe that is why so many Christians talk about dying to their selves. Paul says to the Ephesians - 4:21 - You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds. It seems a bit disheartening as I think about dying to myself, but I don't think that God is intending us to lose any uniqueness of our individuality - Christ gives us our true self back. Isn't that really the whole story of Christianity. God, so loved you, that he sought to give you a new identity, a new family status, a new name, a new hope. He gives you everything you can't give yourself. As we lose our self-awarness and become Christ-Aware we find our true identity. In Christ we find rest, and more importantly we find purpose. Things make sense. Things are right. I can worship. I can hope. I can love. Because it is not me that has to make it right - it is Christ in me - my true identity.

The Boxer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWUCoJJS2DU
Paul Simon - The Boxer

"In the clearing stands a boxer, and a fighter by his trade And he carries the reminders of every glove that laid him down or cut him
til he cried out in his anger and his shame I am leaving, I am leaving,
but the fighter still remains
Yes he still remains"

Romans 7:15-25
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. 21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? 25Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!

Gratitude

Alfred Painter -
"Saying thank you is more than good manners. It is good spirituality."

Blue - Lyrics and Music by Sean Kelly

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=48K8m8kAy-I

Is it me or just the weather
the sun has trouble shining through
a smile is gone but not forever
above the clouds I know it’s blue
I know it’s blue
I think it’s time to look beyond me
for who I loved has gone away
I think it was worth the walk and talking
although I had not much to saynot much to say
Is it me or just the window
the sun has trouble shining through
it takes the rain to make a rainbow
above the clouds I know it’s blue
I know it’s blue

James 1:2-4 & 12
2Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. 4Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything....12Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.

C.H. Spurgeon sermon - "Individual Sin Laid on Jesus"

Christ in the Old Testament - pg. 606 & 607

"Jesus was accepted as the natural substitute and representative of all who trust Him, and all the sin of these was laid on Him, so that they were freed from guilt. Jesus was regarded as if all these sins were His sins, was punished as if these were His sins, was put to shame, forsaken of God, and delivered to death as if He Had been a sinner; and thus through divine grace those who actually committed the sins are permitted to go free. They have satisfied justice through the sufferings of their substitute." ........"we have each chosen our own way of sin, but those sins are not ours now, they are laid on our great Substitute if we are trusting in Him; He has paid to the utmost farthing all the debt of those sins, has borne the fullness of divine wrath, and there is no wrath against us. Just as the bullock was laid on the altar to be burnt, God's wrath came like a consuming fire and burnt the bullock, and there was no fire left; so when the wrath of God fell on Christ, it consumed Him, and there was no fire left, no wrath left, it spent itself. God has no anger against a soul that believes in Jesus, neither has that soul any sin, for its sin has been laid on Christ, and it cannot be in two places at once: Christ has carried it, and the sin has ceased to be - and the believing soul though in itself as black as hell, is now as bright as Christ Himself when He was transfigured, for Christ has finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in everlasting righteousness."

Godisnowhere...The Horse and His Boy - C.S. Lewis

Finally he whispers, “Who are you?” And he hears, “One who has waited long for you to speak.” Shasta is terrorized and says, “Oh, I am the most unlucky person in all the whole world.” And the Voice says, “Tell me your sorrows.” And Shasta does. He unloads all of his sorrows, his litany of woes. “I do not call you unfortunate,” said the Large Voice. “Don’t you think it was bad luck to meet so many lions?” said Shasta. “There was only one lion,” said the Voice. . . . “I was the lion.” And as Shasta gaped with open mouth and said nothing, the Voice continued. “I was the lion who forced you to join with Aravis. I was the cat who comforted you among the houses of the dead. I was the lion who drove the jackals from you while you slept. I was the lion who gave the horses the new strength of fear for the last mile so that you should reach King Lune in time. And I was the lion you do not remember who pushed the boat in which you lay, a child near death, so that it came to shore where a man sat, wakeful at midnight, to receive you.” “Then it was you who wounded Aravis?” “It was I.” “But what for?” “Child,” said the Voice, “I am telling you your story, not hers. I tell no one any story but his own.” “Who are you?” asked Shasta. “Myself,” said the Voice, very deep and low so that the earth shook: and again “Myself,” loud and clear and gay: and then the third time “Myself,” whispered so softly you could hardly hear it, and yet it seemed to come from all round you as if the leaves rustled with
it.
Shasta was no longer afraid that the Voice belonged to something that would eat him, nor that it was the voice of a ghost. But a new and different sort of trembling came over him.