Good News!

Our biggest, most formidable problem is sin. Not sins, the manifestation, but sin, the orientation.  Not sins, the fruit, but sin, the root.  It is the person-oriented, or centered around self, when one’s chief concern is for “I”, “me”  “my”  “mine”.  It is the attempt (though not expressed outwardly, often not recognized) to be God, to seize his place at the center of life, to take control.  It is essentially self-centeredness, the self-referential life.  Every consideration is how it affects “me”.  Not God, not my Christian brothers and sisters- not the unbelievers around me- not even my family or my spouse- but “me”.  “Okay”, you say, “so what do I do about it?  How can I reorient my life around God and others? “The good news is, you can’t!  Self cannot cast out self.  If you got a measure of success, it would make you proud, and you would say, “See what I have done.”  So there it is again- self-congratulation, control, manipulation.  Why is this good news?  Because it is when we recognize that our own best efforts cannot prevail to change us at the root, the way is open for God to do a genuine inside-out overhaul of you.  Hand the controls over to him.  Tell him you no longer desire to be “boss” of your life.  It may happen suddenly, volcano-like, earthquake-like.  More likely, it will be a gradual but real change.  You will begin to notice a real concern for others, a letting-go of life as you see you don’t have to control it after all.  And what a relief, as you turn the management of the universe over to God!