|
“Self”- is defined in Webster’s
dictionary as “belonging to one’s self or own.”
Do we as Christians belong to ourselves? And
if so, why did Christ come to earth as a man, teaching and giving of
himself as a sacrifice for mankind? Jesus came to the earth for a
very selfless reason. He gave of his life so we may have a new
life on earth and life eternally. Jesus set the example, He
talked it, walked it, and lived it. We are to follow His example,
His attitude, (Php 2:1-5) and the way he talked, walked, and lived.
“Theft”- is defined as, “The act of
stealing,”
A spiritual thief is a person who steals the glory
for God and gives it to one’s self. They may set out to do
ministry, but their needs are to have an audience, someone who will pat
them on the back and spread the news about great accomplishments they
are doing. With false humility and a reluctant heart, they will
give some of the credit to God but their motives are still self
seeking, they are looking for praise from man rather than God. (John
12:43) If the heart isn’t right, the intentions aren’t
either--regardless of word or deed. (Lk 6:43-45, Gen 4:3-7--Cain’s
heart was what God looked at, his word and deed appeared to be honoring
God, but his heart showed otherwise.)
False humility is a thief of truth. Those who
practice false humility announce that all glory is given to God, but
neglect to do ministry unless someone is there to give them the glory and to
spread the news about what they
are doing or what they
have done. They have the need to be patted on the back and told
what a good and faithful servant they are, even though they
neglect those in need when they don’t have an audience. Their
motives are purely selfish, stealing from God and giving glory to
themselves.
The disciples gave us a great example. They
started arguing amongst themselves as to which of them would be
considered the greatest. Jesus responded by taking a little child
and having him stand beside him and then saying, "Whoever welcomes this little child in
my name welcomes me; and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent
me. For he who is least among you all--he is the greatest."
(Lk 9:46-48) Of course, Jesus had no problem taking the “wind out
of the sail” of the disciples and their self-inflated image of who they
thought they were. Jesus referred back to a child and a child’s
innocence.
It is funny that after the scolding from Jesus, John
still attempted to draw attention to the elitist status the disciples
thought they had. John said to Jesus, "we saw a man driving out
demons in your name and we
tried to stop him, because he
is not one of us." (Lk 9:49--underlining is added for
emphasis.) Jesus replied with "Do not stop him,...for whoever is not against you is for
you." (LK 9:50) Jesus was not concerned at all that this
man was driving out demons in Jesus’ name, although the man probably
had quite an audience, and I doubt he really had any clue what he was
doing short of a show. This man doesn’t seem to have been a
disciple of Christ, for all we know he was a pagan doing something that
appealed to him and it seemed to work. John, on the other hand,
knew better, he knew where credit was to be given and he also knew the
power by which it came. Just think about how easy it is for us to
get caught up in the glory and majesty of what God is doing through us
and unintentionally receive praise from man as if we did it. It’s
easy to do if we don’t keep our eyes focused on Jesus as well as test
the spirit.
Paul and Silas gave us an excellent example of
focusing on God rather than ourselves and our situation. Paul and
Silas were thrown in Prison (Acts 16:16-40) because they exposed and
cast out a demon controlling a slave girl. Now, the power and the
“goose that laid the golden egg” was gone. The slave owners were
furious because their income was gone. I don’t think they were
concerned at all about Roman customs, as they alluded to, they were
only looking out for their financial interests, they were only out for
selfish gain. With their means of financial gain gone, they
blamed and attacked Paul and Silas, drumming up false accusations and
having them arrested and thrown into jail. Neither Paul nor Silas
cast that demon out to draw attention to themselves, they did it to
bring order and focus as they ministered. God honored their faithfulness
by giving them peace while they were in jail, allowing them to
minister, and by miraculously setting them free. While they
were being falsely accused and wrongfully jailed, God used them to save
the life of the jailer and bring his entire family to believe and trust
in the Lord. God blessed Paul and Silas because of their
faithfulness and willingness to focus on God instead of
themselves. Paul and Silas could easily have grumbled and
complained. But they were above that and chose to focus on
God, not their circumstances. How do we behave when we are
falsely accused and wrongfully punished? Do we keep our focus on
the Lord and continue to serve Him or do we focus on ourselves and how
we’ve been wrongfully treated?
Jesus said in Mt 19:17 to keep/obey the
commandments. Do not steal and do not give false testimony are
two of the commandments Jesus stated. When we give false
testimony, that is stealing. We are taking away from God and
giving it to ourselves or someone else. Testimonies are given by
God for His
glory. We are not to abuse His name to draw attention to
ourselves or something we are doing. Is this not taking God’s
name in vain? (Ex 20:7) God may use our testimonies but it’s not
about us, it’s about what God
is doing and has done through us. Testimonies are for building
the body of Christ up and bringing glory and honor to God, if it is
used for anything other than that, it is character theft. In
worldly legal terms it is called, “defamation of character.”
My wife and I have two very different
testimonies. Jenifer has always known the Lord for as far back as
she can remember. Her family did not live as Christians but she
knew the Lord and grew up living in the presence of the Lord, her
surroundings didn’t matter. My life was just the opposite.
I was raised up in a religious family and couldn’t wait to get away,
desiring to live a life I thought was, “the good life.” My
testimonies are too numerous to give, short of a book. But
Jenifer’s is short and simple and the best testimony of all, she didn’t
have to go through a time of rebellion and disobedience to learn her
lessons. Jenifer wanted to do God’s will, so God has always been
a huge part of her life, no testimony could be greater. She has
been tempted and could have fallen to temptation but her heart was on
the Lord. At any time Jenifer could make up an elaborate
testimony to impress others, or stretch the truth a little to
make her testimony just a bit more exciting, but if she would, she
would be lying, baring false testimony. Jenifer would be removing
the Glory from God and putting it on herself. She could easily
give a false testimony and the readers would not know the difference,
but God would and hold her accountable
not only for the theft but for any destruction caused to others.
False testimony is Spiritual theft!
Stealing the glory from God and placing it on one’s self.
Jesus had choices every day of his life, just as you
and I do. Jesus made the choice to keep his focus on His Father,
taking it away from himself. (John 5:41-44; 8:50, 54) John
6:38 “For I have come down
from heaven not to do my will but to do the will of him who sent me.”
If we would focus on doing the Father’s will instead of our own, we
would be much further along in our walk and much closer
to the Lord having the refined ability to hear the voice of
the
Lord.
Think about what Jesus did for us, what He went
through. God is not asking us to physically go to the cross,
that’s been done already. He is asking us to spiritually go to
the cross, daily (Mt 10:38-39); to be persons of character and to give
of ourselves as Jesus gave of himself. It’s such a small price to
pay compared to the price Jesus paid. We need to focus on being obedient,
putting others before ourselves for the sake of Christ.
My wife and I had a house given to us once after a
long period of homelessness (a long story). Not just any
house, but a good sized house on a big lake, where the influential
live. We wanted to be good servants, not greedy or self seeking,
so we refused the house and agreed to move in with the person, thinking
we were undeserving and doing the right thing. We were
undeserving, but that’s not our decision to make, that is God’s
and God’s alone. By refusing the house we were disobedient, all
the while thinking we were doing the humble thing. But we needed
to do what God wanted, not what we felt was the humble and subservient
thing to do. We went overboard the opposite direction, letting
our thoughts
and feelings get in the way of what God was doing in our life, as well
as the life of the owner of the house. Because of the choice we
made, due to our lack of focus on the Lord, we brought suffering
to us and the home owner.
The man who owned the house had made it his
“god,” his life rotated around his house, and God told him to give it
up. He was obedient, he did what God asked of him but we refused
and that drove him even deeper into his self-centered life. God
only knows how far reaching the suffering has traveled through friends
and family, because of this one act of disobedience. I can tell
you that we are still suffering because of our disobedience.
Blessings were robbed, joy was taken, and suffering occurred, because
of a seemingly good intended decision.
As they say, hindsight is 20/20. We can see
how destructive our motives were, even if they were well
intended. Note: I said, “our motives.” If our motives
are out of God’s will, no matter how good the intentions are, they are
self gratifying. We are learning to go to the Lord for all of our
decisions, not just the big ones but the small ones as well. We
are not perfect at doing so, but we recognize the need to stay focused
on God’s will and plans for our lives. Seeking His will daily,
learning how to be obedient, and understanding that God really doesn't
need our help but wants our hearts, we need to focus on His purpose for
our lives, refine our hearing, become accustomed to the voice of God,
and learn to act on His voice. (Eph 5:1-20)
You see selfishness comes in all flavors, even if
intentions are good, they can still be selfish. Selfishness is
run by our thoughts and feelings: not allowing us to move out of
our comfort zones, keeping us
from being the person God intends us to be. Selfishness says,
“What will others say about me?”
or “Will I look good
while doing it?” or ”How is this going to effect my image?” or “How is this
going to effect my
relationships?” and so on. Selfishness is always about self. What I want,
what I need, how I look, it’s all about “I,” “Me,” and my selfish
ambitions.
Webster’s Dictionary defines
selfish as follows: Regarding one's own interest chiefly or
solely; influenced in actions by a view to private advantage.
Philippians
2:3 Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in
humility consider others better than yourselves. This even
applies to the simplest acts of life.
Think about being at the dinner table; there are two pieces of bread
left, one fresh, the other kind of dry, which one will you take,
leaving the other one for someone else? Remember, we are to think
of others above ourselves (even relatives). How about when we
give food to the food shelf or to someone in need. Do we give the
same name brand food we eat or do we give the less expensive brand
because of where it is going? Paul rebukes the church of
Corinth about their selfishness at the Lord’s Supper. (1 Cor
11:17-22) All the people were gathered around the table grabbing
bread and drinking wine getting drunk , leaving nothing for the
rest. Jesus said, "...this
is my body, which is broken for you; do this in remembrance of me."
(1 Cor 11:24) Now, what is our attitude? Jesus willingly
took the sin of you and me upon his shoulders so we could be free. We
need to think of others above ourselves.
Selfishness can also create control problems.
Pastors frequently fall to spiritual control, thinking that being the
spiritual leader of a flock they need that control. But what
about God? Pastors are tools through which God gives spiritual
authority over a flock, God guides the pastor, the pastor guides the
flock. A controlling pastor guides the flock under his own
strength and uses God’s name to justify his reasoning. We all
need to give God control, pastors, ditch diggers, and all in
between. If God isn’t the controller of our lives we can only
expect discord and confusion, order and focus cannot be established and
God’s full and complete purpose will never come to pass outside His
will. The need to control is very prevalent in husbands, wives,
government leaders and officials, sports figures, intellectuals, and
people trying to be somebody they aren’t. It is a never ending
list which we can easily be a part of if we allow selfishness to reign
in our lives. Remember, the temptation is always there, but the
tempter can only take what we give him.
Jesus gave nothing to the tempter, he was steadfast.
“As soon as Jesus was
baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was
opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and
lighting on him.” (Matt 3:16) Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into
the desert to be tempted by the devil. (Matt 4:1) The
tempter, Satan, knowing Jesus was very hungry made a simple suggestion,
“tell these stones to
become bread.” (Matt 4:3-4) Realizing that didn’t work,
the tempter said to a weary Jesus, “throw
yourself down...” (Matt 4:6) But Jesus knew not to put the
Lord to the test, by forcing God to manifest His powers: sending
angels to keep Him from harm. (Matt 4:5-7) And lastly, knowing
that Jesus’ flesh was weak, the tempter offered Jesus all the kingdoms
and splendor of the world (Matt 4:8-9), but Jesus answered, "Away from me, Satan! For it is
written: 'Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’ ”
(Matt 4:10) You see, Jesus had the Spirit of God, (Matt 3:16) the
same Spirit you and I have been given, we need to learn how to depend
on, call upon, and live in the power we’ve been given. We need to
rely upon the living God, our source,
for all our needs, big and small . Jesus knew there was nothing
He could do under His own power. There is nothing we can do under
our own power.
Selflessness, what God truly wants of us, really
comes down to sacrifice, and a sacrifice is something that costs us
something valuable. If it doesn’t cost anything it’s not a
sacrifice. I’m not talking about money, time, or things, I
am talking about giving back what God has given us--our life. It
may take some of our time, money, and things, but God wants us.
He wants 100% of you and me. The real us, not the self-centered,
game playing, candy-coated Christian--but the real person He created us
to be. (Lk 9:23-24; Matt 10:37-39; John 12:23-25; Luke 14:25-34;
Romans 12:1)
Spiritual theft is taking from God and giving to
one’s self or others. God has given us wisdom and understanding,
protection and prosperity, blessings and
joy. To deny what God has done is to deny God himself.
Testify
to God’s Goodness:
Live it Out,
and
Give All the Glory to God!
Don’t
Steal it Away!
|