Healed of Self

Jesus loved the rich young ruler and challenged him to forsake all and follow Him. He went away sad and was never counted among the twelve or even the 70. Self centred-ness is a disease. We were never created to be the centre of our life. Like the Earth, we were designed to orbit around the “Son” and to always to be facing him.

Years ago, E Stanley Jones visited a mental institution and asked: “What’s wrong with these people?” The answer from the doctor was “They are selfish people. They are totally absorbed in self; contained in a barrel of self and marinating in a pickle of self and no one will ever be able to improve their mental health or thinking, while they are concentrating on themselves.”

If you devote yourself to self, you will become mentally unstable. Actually, if people give their life away to anything, they would be better off than just giving themselves to self, but we are designed as humans to give our life to someone, and that person is Almighty God our Creator. If we live for ourselves our life will be limited and fraught with errors of judgment. We will make mistakes in how we treat people, raise children, build a home and generally negotiate life. We will find it impossible to walk with integrity and true purpose. People get drunk and take drugs to feel bigger- more transcendent!

Friend, our life is too small, but Jesus says if you give your away, I’ll give you the life I planned for you. It is a good life, an enlarged life - life as God intended.