Growing In Godliness Blog
“Self-Willed or God’s Will - Part 2”
Categories: Author: Tom Rose, God, Jesus, Obedience, Relationships, Sin, TemptationSelf-Willed or God’s Will - Part 2
By Tom Rose
In Part 1 we learned that God has always demanded strict adherence to His word, but mankind has, from the beginning, rebelled against God’s word, placing self above God. The first woman, Eve, threw out honor and obedience as though she owed nothing to the One who had created and lovingly placed her in this beautiful garden. She trampled loyalty and love and trust in her selfish stampede toward what today we would call self-realization or self-actualization. Motivated by self-interest and self-satisfaction, she succumbed to another tactic of Satan: persuade men to disobey God on the promise that they shall obtain good by it.
When Eve (and Adam) sinned, God was not pleased. By expelling the guilty pair from the Garden, God was acting both justly and in love. He kept man from the tree of life because it would not have been an act of love but a capitulation to man’s self-indulgence to perpetuate him in his fallen condition. Sin put the flaming sword of God’s Judgment between man and the tree of life (Gen 3:24). Further, God was not vindictive in barring man’s access to eternal life, because the entire story of the Bible shows how one Man, Christ, took the judgment we deserved, redeemed us from our sins, and offered us a way back to everlasting life. The lesson for Adam and Eve, for you and me, and for all mankind simply points to one indisputable fact: if we want a relationship with God, it will be on His terms, abiding by His Word.
As we close, let us distinguish between a humanistic self-denial and a Biblical denial of self. The first is self still on the throne, denying itself certain pleasures; the second is the death of self through our identification with Christ in His death for our sins (Gal. 2:20). What the Bible seems to mean by self is man cut off from God, acting and processing independently. That is why Christ made the denial of self a condition to becoming His disciple (Mt. 16:24), and why there is a fatal flaw in the theology of self-esteem.
When we read and believe God’s Word, we see God for who He really is, bow to His majesty, surrender to His purpose, and turn our life into an instrument of His holy will. One writer has attempted to describe the self that now lives exclusively for Christ as follows: If we believe in Jesus, it is not what we gain but what He pours through us that counts. It is not that God makes us beautifully rounded grapes, but that He squeezes the sweetness out of us. Spiritually, we cannot measure our life by success, but only by what God pours through us, and we cannot measure that at all.
Therefore, if we choose to become God’s useful servants, we must turn away from the popular messages of our day and be more convinced than ever that life’s major purpose is not pleasing self. . .but pleasing God.
