I recently heard a riff off of Martin Luther’s theology of baptism: “I was drowned in the water of baptism but that sucker can float.” Picture your selfish flesh coming up like a zombie out of the water each morning. The battle of being fully sinful and fully cleansed commences. A battle that will not be won until the day Jesus returns and raises us from the dead. Sounds a bit disheartening doesn’t it?
Each day we face the prospect of allowing the world to take control of our thoughts and actions. Our desire to be vengeful, a worry-wort, greedy, immoral, and selfish sits at the end of the bed beckoning us like a zombie siren song.
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Ephesians 6:12
When I was a child, our cartoons frequently portrayed this great battle. The everyday man, when faced with even everyday choices found a little devil and little angel sitting upon his shoulder. So often the devil would seemingly win. Why? Because he brings the shiny things. The opportunities for immediate gratification, fame and glory. What the cartoons also portrayed is the angel’s way always wins in the end. The gratification of self always led to some sort of personal destruction.
For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. James 3:16
The problem with the cartoons was it showed “obeying” the angel as less fun and satisfying. Isn’t that what so many of us really think when we talk about obeying God? Removing the fun out of life. Becoming monk-like in our ways. James describes disorder, lack of peace, lack of love. Those don’t actually sound like fun while the opposite does. So I harken back to the previous post’s question, “Who do you love and admire?”
When we honestly answer that question we can then get to the root of our desires. As a professing Christian our desire for “the good life” should come from a desire to selflessly love and worship God, not ourselves.
How great is your (God) goodness that you would choose us, and predestinate us to be conformed into the image of your Son, that he might be the first-born among many brethren, and we the happy brethren who should be transformed into his likeness!
Charles Spurgeon
We are God’s chosen. He brings you out of the water cleansed every morning, ready to put on your full armor of God (Eph 6). Ready to please and love God, not the water zombie at the foot of the bed. We stay close to Him by soaking ourselves in His Word. Watering our roots deeply so our branches grow strong. We talk to Him throughout the day in prayer so the Holy Spirit can guide us in our fruit production. We thank Him at every possible turn so our good fruit can bless others.
We humans know, it’s implanted in our hearts and souls, that our selfish ways are destructive. But the pull is so great. It can only be counteracted by turning our face toward our Creator. Relying on Him as the broken, sinful people we know we are. To become selfless we need to be less of ourselves and instead more as people yearning to grab ahold of God’s saving mercy and grace pulling us up from the waters into His arms.
Coming up: The result of goodness
emboldened.net 