Mixing the trends of the culture with the commands of God has always been a struggle for us humans and how could it not be?
We are both flesh and spirit in the same container.
We live here on earth where many of the people we encounter on any given day knowingly or unknowingly reject God and are led by darkness, masquerading as light.
The mixing of the world with the gospel is a battle that has been fought since long before Paul’s day-although he wrote about it quite a bit in his letters, and we need wisdom and discernment from the Lord to recognize when the commands of God are being perverted by culture.
If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him; James 1:5
I believe one such way is the gospel of self-help and self-improvement.
It’s caught so many of us because it’s logical, it makes sense to hard-working people that desire to become better.
It has “be a good person” written all over it and isn’t that what we are supposed to be, good?
I have long been stuck on the old saying,
If the devil can’t make you bad, he’ll make you busy.
-Attributed to Corrie Ten Boom, but I’m not sure she came up with it herself….
As someone prone to keeping busy with work assigned BY myself TO myself, I am well acquainted with this phenomenon
When I was walking in sin, the enemy didn’t have to pay much attention to me.
He had me.
I was following the world, loosely holding some nominal form of Christianity that served to make me feel like a “good” person at times, all the while I was guiding myself, living for myself, living in darkness.
But when by the grace of God and lots of prayer I began to live for Christ, that’s when the trouble started.
I became a target.
There was a marked uptick in struggles and suffering.
I had attracted an adversary and it was apparent.
Saved and sanctified, trying to read God’s word and listen to what He was teaching me, the enemy knew he had to take a different tac to keep me from growing in my faith and one of the approaches he chose was self improvement.
For quite a while I focused on “becoming better”.
I read books about why I am the way I am.
I ruminated on history, past traumas, history and life choices.
I spent a great deal of time trying to figure out why I am the way I am and what I need to do to change.
I honestly don’t think there’s anything wrong with doing any of this.
It’s necessary work, WHEN it’s guided by the Lord.
Our gracious Lord does heal us.
He does want to teach us and show us things, uncover truth and help us to see things as he sees them.
He will bring up the past, as He did with the Samaritan woman at the well.
He will heal us as He did with the woman that had was plagued with hemorrhaging.
He does wish to be in relationship with us and gently challenge us in our daily life habits like He did with Martha.
I think the trouble starts for us when thinking we are serving the Lord by bettering ourselves, we become busy always trying to improve ourselves.
It reminds me of my fitness days.
Many a times I got caught up in modalities and philosophies that taught me to do a certain corrective exercise every day.
Every day I would do the exercise and most days I would feel better, but it would never stick.
The next morning I was right back where I started and I needed to do the exercise, sometimes for longer or harder, to have any effect.
I often wasn’t getting to the root.
I was having to devote more and more time to “fixing” the problem and it honestly becomes a stressor and distractor from the many other things I needed to be attending to in my life.
I think this is how it works with self-help.
Many Christians these days swear dedication to their Lord and then spend most of their time focusing on themselves.
They are in a period of self-discovery and self improvement organized by the enemy to keep them busy.
But the Bible doesn’t tell us to do that.
In fact it’s pretty clear that the changes in us that occurs once we become saved are orchestrated and brought about by the Lord and only Him.
We read about the fruits of the spirit, an outgrowth of the presence of the Holy Spirit growing our lives.
We read verses like,
“He who began a good work in you will be faithful to complete it,”
which I think if many of us are honest with ourselves we take as “He who began a good work in you will be faithful to walk alongside you and support you as you do all the work to redeem and improve yourself.
It was Jesus that said, “I am the resurrection and the life,” “I have overcome the world,” and “It is finished.”
I’m not suggesting that we have zero responsibility when it comes to living differently but I do think that the enemy has orchestrated a major distraction around us Believers trying to better ourselves INSTEAD of allowing Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit to transform us.
We are called to die to ourselves NOT to live a better version of our life.
Oswald Chambers frequently talks about this very thing.
“Our Lord said that He never worked from His own initiative. He let God the Father do His work through Him and He obeyed Him.
Has your life been thoroughly given over to God? Or are you still striving to create joy and peace and happiness? If s, turn to God, and let Him do His work.” -Chambers
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He reminds us that John 15:16 says, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,”
The whole message of the gospel is NOT be a good person, but to recognize your fallen nature, that you need a savior. That you must die to yourself and be resurrected in Christ.
As Paul said, “It is not I that live, but Christ IN ME.”
He tell us in Phillipians 3 that he has suffered the loss of all things and counted them rubbish that he may gain Christ and be found in him not having his OWN righteousness, but through faith in Christ that he may know Him and the power of His resurrection.
Many a times I have caught myself thinking first thing in the morning about how I’m going to be different today, how I’m going to be better, try harder.
I get lost in thought about the things I need to do for myself and to myself in order to be the person I want to be.
Control my tongue.
Be more patient.
Think before I act.
Serve others.
The list goes on…..
Slowly the Lord has been teaching me to ask Him for these things and then to let Him work.
He’s showing me that it’s His work to complete, I mostly need to move out of the way, defer to His will and His wisdom and stop trying to hard.
I don’t even know what the person He wants me to be looks like.
I don’t know how to get there.
He has not revealed the path to me and I am commanded not to be anxious about anything OR to worry about tomorrow, so how could I even make the plans necessary to become my evolving and better self?
He’s been teaching me that the direction I need, the manna for each day, if you will, is right there in the Lord’s Prayer, the one that His own son, Jesus told us to pray.
Our Father Who Art In Heaven, Hallowed By Thy Name
Praise to Him for all He has done and what He is doing.
Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done On Earth
Submission to His will and His plans in my life on earth.
Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread
Prayer for our needs, plans and experiences of today.
Forgive Us Our Trespasses As We Forgive Those Who Trespass Against Us.
Willingness to humble ourselves and admit our wrong doing as we also forgive those who did wrong against us.
Lead Us Not Into Temptation, But Deliver Us From Evil.
A plea to be saved from temptation and offered deliverance when evil comes.
For Thine Is The Kingdom, The Power And The Glory Forever Amen.
Admission that He is in charge of it all now and forever.
Aside from listing the friends and family I want to pray for and their needs-this prayer pretty much covers the bases AND is a reminder to me of what my responsibility is today:
Do His Will Each Moment.
I know there is nuance to this and I’m not saying that books and thought leaders, times of introspection and self-exploration, to-do lists and desires to be better aren’t helpful in making us more like Christ.
But again-it all has to be subject to His will and rooted in His power in us.
Even these self improvement aspirations need to be offered up to Him first.
ON our own we are prone to get lost, caught up in busy work or tracks in the mind that cycle but never get us anywhere.
We look to ourselves over and over again to solve problems.
And we see others in the Bible who have done that too.
Abraham lied to protect himself.
Saul kept the animals he was told to slaughter AND sought the wisdom of a sorcerer.
King Asa called upon physicians instead of God.
Peter lied to protect his skin.
Judas betrayed Jesus to preserve the current Hebrew religion and rule….
The road to hell may in fact be paved with intentions that we deem “good”, but one’s He knows to be flawed and self-oriented, and dare-I-say-it, prideful?
And so if you’re like me and you’ve been caught in the cycle of self-improvement, I would ask you, have you tried “turning it off and not turning it on again?”
Meaning-lay it down.
Do you need a reboot?
Do you need to remember WHO is at work in you, who began the good work and who will be faithful to complete it?
Do you perhaps need to put aside the goals you have for yourself and simply take up the cross put before you today that the Lord is going to use to transform you into His likeness?
Are you trying to be the potter when you are simply the clay?
Could you just for today try letting go and simply focusing on obedience to do the work He has put before you for today and let Him do the inner work?
He will get to the root of your habits.
He will use the simple tasks and experiences of the day to transform you FAR more deeply than anything you could ever do for yourself.
He will change your perspective and mind.
He will give you the peace you need to become a different person in His perfect timing and in His way.
To fight Him and tell Him what you are going to do and how you are going to fix it is hubris and a waste of time sent your way by someone that knows you well and seeks to waste your time, attack your spirit and keep you busy on a hamster wheel of fixing yourself.
It is Christ in you, not you in you trying to act like Christ.
Xoxo,
Sarah
PS-Any typos here brought to you by me a person, not AI.
So good, thank you.