“CONTENTED WITH SELF OR CONVERTED TO NEW LIFE”
By J. Farrell Fisher, August 25, 2014
Have you ever heard the term or word called “self-aggrandisement”? Noah Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines ‘aggrandisement’ as: “One exalting self in power, rank, or honor – exalting one’s self as greater – (should I dare insert ‘even greater than God Himself’?), or enlarged in one’s own opinion of self…”
It was Paul, in Romans 12:3, who said: “For I say, through the grace given to me, to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.”
And contextually, it’s clear that every birthed human being has ‘a measure of faith,’ but that ‘measure’ can turn inward rather than upward, me rather than what God has willed, my becoming rather than a “new birth” reality!
No doubt this is why the author of Proverbs gave us the strong word in Proverbs 25:27! “It is not good to eat much honey; so to seek one’s own glory is not glory.” How clear is that revelation- word?
Contented with self- people are more than likely people who have no control over themselves, though they want you to think that they do! Contented with self -people want you to think they have control in ‘all things,’ but, really, they have no control even over themselves! You’ll usually find that ‘self-contented’ people are usually those with ‘the city of their lives broken down without walls,’ because they have no rule over their own spirits though they want to rule over you!
You do see that ‘self-pride’ people, content with who they are and what they do, never can come up with a truthful answer of what it is he/she is really proud of. And, of course, pride goes before a fall. Sheared Samson is a prime example of one who allows self-promotion to take precedence over God Himself being number One in one’s life.
Contented with self-people are symbolized, yes, by many pastors who ‘tone down truth’ because they might lose financial support for the local church they pastor! Sadly, Samson was shorn, and so are many pastors because, ‘contented with self,’ they will compromise Divine Truth!
Can you even begin to imagine Jesus, confronted by the scribes and Pharisees, and those “religious freaks” threaten Him with a closed-door to the Temple if He doesn’t tone down His preaching or rhetoric toward them? “Why, you brood of vipers and snakes”!! And Jesus didn’t back off!
Don’t ever forget Queen Esther! She was wife to the strong ruler, Ahasuerus. Haman is determined to destroy her nation and he gets a decree to do just that! Here comes Mordecai! He confronts Esther that she must speak to the king. If she does, she knows she’ll possibly die! And Esther? “If I die, I die; but I must speak deliverance for my people, because who knows if I didn’t come to my ‘Queen’ position for such a time as this?” Was the Queen guided by convenience or conviction? And what guides your life as a believer, a follower, a disciple, a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ?
In I John 2:18-20 John tells us: “Little children, it is the last hour; and as you have heard that the Antichrist is coming, even now many antichrists have come, by which we know it is the last hour…
They went out from us, but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would have continued with us; but they went out that they might be made manifest, that none of them were of us…
But you have an anointing from the Holy One, and you know all things.”
Paul put it like this in I Corinthians 11:19, “For there must also be factions among you, that those who are approved may be recognized among you.”
Have you ever faced the dilemma in your faith-walk of those who ‘shout’ convenience over commitment to need, or ‘greater blessing’ over the ‘laid-down life’ at the point of the truly greatest need?
Contented with self or converted to new life? Don’t you find it so amazing and, yes, so disturbing, as we read in 2 Timothy 4:10, where Paul told Timothy, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world”?
Do you remember Paul’s word to the church at Colossae? [Colossians 4:17], “And say to Archippus, ‘Take heed to the ministry which you have received in the Lord, that you may fulfill it.” Every single disciple IS a minister while some are pastoral ministers, but all followers of Christ are commissioned as “ambassadors” ushering in His Kingdom-rule!
The Apostle Paul spoke to the Ephesian elders in Acts 20:22-24, “And see, now I go bound in the spirit to Jerusalem, not knowing the things that will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies in every city, saying that chains and tribulations await me. BUT NONE OF THESE THINGS MOVE ME; NOR DO I COUNT MY LIFE DEAR TO MYSELF, so that I may finish my race with joy, and the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.” But ‘your calling’ is different?
He understood who he was ‘in Christ’! In Galatians 1:1 he wrote: “Paul, an apostle (not from men, nor through man), but through Jesus Christ and God the Father who raised Him from the dead.” He saw “converted to new life” – not devoted to religious activities! In Galatians 1:15-16 he wrote, “But when it pleased God, who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me through His grace, to REVEAL HIS SON IN ME…!” And if you hadn’t seen it yet in your own pilgrimage, Galatians is God’s call to each and every disciple in FAITH, FREEDOM, FULLNESS, FRUIT, AND THE FIGHT!
Do you remember the disciples coming to Jesus and saying to Him, (Matthew 18:1), “Who then is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And He answered in verses 3-4, “Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are CONVERTED and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. Therefore whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”
But you choose “senior, adult, manly pride in yourself” while Jesus says the greatest is the one dependent as a little child? You choose “fleshly wit” over divine wisdom? You choose what your fallen flesh dictates over the Holy Revelation of divine truth? You choose reason, your reason, over the divine mind and revealed will of God?
Contented with self or converted to new life? Oh, I tell you, Paul hit a ‘world series home run’ when in 2 Corinthians 10:5 he said: “casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, [thus] bringing every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” Contentment with self is blind allegiance to ‘fallen flesh’ alleging even higher, greater thoughts and deeds than God Himself in Christ!
And only when one brings a captive mind to Christ will the enslaving chains be broken and shattered. In fact, in 2 Corinthians 10:4 Paul said: “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal (fleshly) but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds.” But, sadly, too many don’t, can’t, or won’t see the “strongholds” in their own minds and hearts!
A ‘contented self’ is a powerful stronghold in defiance of Holy God and the Servant Spirit of Christ, because contented selves are those who want to be served rather than to serve. But sometimes even new immature believers impulsively begin to act on their own and spiritual problems occur! In “My Utmost For His Highest” Oswald Chambers said: [p.186], “Then take ourselves – a vivid religious experience, and every project born of impulse put into action immediately, instead of being imprisoned and disciplined to obey Christ.” I have no hesitation in admitting to you, that in my early and mid-years of service, I made impulsive, yes, stupid decisions!
There are those who do say, “I’m saved from my sin, but I believe I’m smart enough to make decisions on my own and even fight my own battles!” Well, just how childish and immature and irrational is that when the Resurrected King of kings is living within us!?!
This is why Chambers said on the same page: “We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ’s view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his Mind.” And, of course, yielding to the Indwelling Christ and leadership of the Holy Spirit!
Contented with self or converted to new life? And contented with self is the testimony of an unregenerated life of pretense while converted to new life is the eternal truth of “Christ in you the hope of glory.” It’s not in an unregenerate man to bring about in himself eternal salvation. Even a regenerate man has no testimony in himself of a saving ability but he HAS fully repented, trusted in the finished work of Christ at the Cross, and experienced the “new birth” and infilling of the Holy Spirit! Doesn’t the word of God tell us, “For it is God who works in us both to will and to do His good pleasure”?
Contented with self? Oh, sadly, there is a world filled with people who don’t even know they are spiritually deprived and spiritually dead before Holy God, and don’t know of His desire to give them Resurrection Life, Resurrection Power, and Resurrection Hope that is eternal in and through Christ Jesus! Do you remember Ezekial 37:3 where God asked Ezekial, “Son of man, can these bones live?” Ezekial said, “O Lord God, you know,” as if to say in that given moment he wasn’t sure. But he did as God commanded him, and in verse 10, Ezekial tells us, “So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came upon them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.” Oh, there IS conversion to new life!
And for all those who’ve gone on through death to await God’s final rendering, in John 5:25-29, Jesus speaks: “Most assuredly, I say to you, the hour is coming, and now is, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live…
For as the Father has life in Himself, so He has granted the Son to have life in Himself…
And has given Him authority to execute judgment also, because He is the Son of Man.
Do not marvel at this; for the hour is coming in which all who are in the graves will hear His voice and come forth –
Those who have done good to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation.”
Every individual will stand personally before Holy God to receive either his sentencing or his blessing. That means that professors who know nothing of being possessed by Him will give an account of their empty faith or rebellious reasoning. Historical ‘verifiers’ who stand before the Author of His-story but no testimony of their re-birth will hear His verdict of aliens and strangers. Devoted legalists will hear the Savior say, “I never knew you – depart.”
Daniel 12:2-3 tells us, “And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, some to shame and everlasting contempt…
Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness like the stars forever and ever.”
William Wordsworth, in “Intimations of Immortality”, wrote:
“Not in utter nakedness, but trailing clouds of glory do come.”
Paul said in I Corinthians 10:31, “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” That sounds like a person converted to new life, not one contented with self!
Someone anonymously wrote “Out in the Fields” – and I pray as you read it that you stand before God’s fields of faith and service and spiritually sense what God would have you do from this day forward in His “fields” of service and blessing!
“The little cares that fretted me, I lost them yesterday;
Among the fields above the sea, among the winds at play…
Among the hushing of the corn, where drowsy poppies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born – Out in the fields of God.”
Tell me about your thoughts, your words, your deeds – all to the glory of God in the ‘fields of God’!
Remember Jesus tells us: “Behold, I make all things new!!”