Self Serve?

One on my beliefs is that we must lose all sense of self to be true followers of Christ Jesus. (Mark 8:34-35, Matthew 16:24, Luke 9:23, Proverbs 3:5-6)

Losing all sense of self...denying oneself...  

What exactly does that mean?  Losing all sense of self?  

Basically, we lose ourself when we stop obsessing over ourselves.  We stop serving ourselves.

Not focusing on ourselves seems to be a completely foreign concept in today's society.  We all appear to be so wrapped up in ourselves today.  Because, after all, it really is all about me.  Right? 

We want things now.  We carry our phones around like they are part of our bodies.  We want our calls, our texts and our emails now.  We want  everyone to "like" and "view" what we post now.  We want immediate responses.  We want the latest and greatest version of everything.  Even if it's not broke we replace perfectly good things - phones, TVs, tablets, cars, clothes, the list could go on and on...  We want it all and we want it now.

We want more.  We aren't happy with just one.  We have to have more.  We have to have bigger...better....more improved.   How many people have more than one TV in their house?  How many people wait for the latest and greatest release version of something we own?  How many people want more money so we can buy more things?  How many people have to have a certain brand of something or have things with a specific label?

We want and we want and we want...

What if we stopped pursing all of kinds of "things" and starting pursing love?

Love.  

Yes...love.

Jesus tells us to love God and love others (Matthew 22:37-39).  We aren't  command us to love ourselves.  We aren't told to do whatever we can to make ourselves feel good.  We are told to love others.  


Love is an action.  

We must act.  When we act, we are idly sitting by.  So when we act are are intentionally and purposefully do something.

If we are loving others...we can't be serving ourselves at the same time.  

Basically, when we intentionally love others we intentionally serve others...we lose ourselves.

Pretty simple when you think about it.  A little harder to put it into action.

So who will you be serving?  

Will you be sitting idly by?  

Or will you chose to act and intentionally love?

But if serving the Lord seems undesirable to you, 

then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, 

whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. 

But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.”

Joshua 24:15 NIV