And it was heard from Jesus, saying, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."
What do we replace self with, when we surrender? With Choosing to listen to God (John 8:43 - He says, "Why do ye not understand my speech? even because ye cannot hear my word.") To do both of these we need God’s power. We need the Holy Spirit. It’s choosing to do opposite of our natural self. It is a Long life battle. To not be filled with the Holy Spirit is to give room for self. We’re beings that always need to be filled. When not filled with God, we’re filled with self, self is bottomless - it doesn’t get satisfied. So no matter how many familiar natural things the flesh can do (endless intense things that revolve around breaking all the 10 Commandments) self will still not be satisfied. This is because we were originally created to worship our Creator God, and if one doesn’t believe this and naturally goes on to worship self, then will never be satisfied but will be caught in it. This is why there is none that seek after God, there is none righteous. All of us need to be born again to realize and know our true identity. We were beautifully created, and the enemy of souls who is very real is warring against this, to hurt God. I see a loving Savior dying on the cross for the lost sea of humanity which includes you and I. He saw you and I when He was dying. We were always in His heart (Rev 13:8) He saw how confused we are without Him that we would kill Him. He saw the devil’s anger possessing self, the devil’s anger towards God. This is why Jesus said “forgive them for they know not what they do” (Luke 23:34)
When Jesus cleaned someone out of possession, that person was to fill his temple (his mind) with God or else his state would become worse than the first time. So we see that we are usually either under the control of God or of the devil. There is no middle ground. The master of self is seen in the garden, we chose to obey him through Adam and Eve, and as a result opened the door to listen to him. To hear God’s voice, we need the Spirit. John 3 mentions this - left to ourselves we would -like what it says in Genesis about Noah’s time, “we would think evil continuously” (Gen 6:5) because that is what self if about. To have good thoughts we therefore realize they come from a good source. What is a good source?We recall the rich young ruler (Matthew 19:16-30) calling Jesus - good Master. Then Jesus asked him a question to direct him to what he was really asking and to show him who was in-front of him. Only God is good. He is the source of good, so if any good thoughts passes through our minds, we know the source. If we think we’re originators of good, that is the problem. This is where a person can think “i’m not a sinner” “I do such and such which is good out my own will.” This is to declare self has good in it. To declare self has righteousness, which brings the term self righteousness. The Pharisees had this issue. Then Paul who said he kept the law as a Pharisee, he then said, when the law came, sin revived, and he saw the folly of self. He saw the darkness. He saw self righteousness. Left to ourselves we’re left in darkness. This issue is present today. To breakaway, we need to know that there is no good in us left to ourselves. This is what will bring our great need to be kept by God. Just because one is not murdering left to self, doesn’t mean that self is good. One may still murder in thought, might gossip (murder someone’s character) and the list can continue. This is why self is not right, it is full of wrong, but do we fully believe this? If we do, then we will cry out to God not to be left in the darkness, but want to be filled with the light, and full of true righteousness which is Christ’s righteousness and not just a prayer once, but every moment, because we need Him directing our thoughts, which is where sinful thoughts can begin before actions, given time and opportunity. The years of man have proven this to be true. Not very long after sin entered the world, we see murder 😞 which started with jealousy. Jealousy, envy is evil, I mean, look at Heaven - satan getting envious and jealous of Christ, and sin began. He did not take the issue to God for redemption. He lost his trust to God and before you know it, it continued to develop until rebellion. This is what can happen to us. This is why we need our Healer, and this self is a battle, that we can’t fight on our own, we need the conquerer to fight it in us, and then through us fight the enemy of souls that seeks to kill and destroy from the beginning and even possessed the people to kill their God (Jesus) because this is what he would want. He would kill us all if he could. Don’t we see the things he leads us to are all that bring death. As it says in Proverbs 8:36
May we surrender to God today, and every moment. He is the way, the truth, and the life. May we know Him the only true God🙏 He is our deliverer from any bondage, and I can testify🙏 It is a real moment by moment battle though. May we hold on to Christ. He is our victory.
I thought to share this sermon below by Evangelist Samuel Tucker, and I believe you will be blessed and aroused to want to walk the faith🙏
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