2020 was the year of slowing down enough to see the deception in the church and the whole focus on self is one of them. In 20/20, I truly did see clearly. It was like an unveiling. A puzzle coming together.
People we disciple say they believe “a lie” that they aren’t enough….and we disciple them by saying “No, you are enough.” So instead of agreeing with them and saying “Yep, you aren’t enough….Jesus is” we lie and convince them they are enough.
You might not think you just lied to them, because you yourself have bought into the deception. You drank the kool-aid flavored “Age of Self” and your stained lips speak it all day long.
This book is called “Enough about Me.” I would encourage you to read it.
Me-centered teaching has crept in, set up camp and been so widely accepted that we don’t even wrestle with it anymore.
You would think all this fighting for our rights, focusing on ourself, I “just gotta take care of me” would make us happier but in reality women’s happiness has declined from the 70s to the mid 2000s. More than one in five women are on antidepressants.
We 21st Century women have been running on ourselves rather than God. We’ve been running on self-help, self-empowerment, and self-actualization. The fuel of self has run out and that’s why we’re tired and discouraged and even in crisis.
The self worldview started with Adam and Eve thinking maybe God was trying to withhold something better they could get for themselves. We got stuck in the fall, the belief that we could be our own god.
Then you have markers in history where fine tuned our focus on self.
The thing about worldviews is they are subtle. We rarely see the trap we are believing if it is not a Biblical worldview.
1600s: The age of reason with “I think therefore I am.” Self was the authority.
1700s: Enlightenment period “If it feels good do it.” The age of revolutions where the individual was prioritized over the institution.
1800s: Emerson with self-reliance. Karl Marx championed total autonomy. Darwin convinced us we evolved by chance and mutation freeing us from any obligation to a creator or god outside of ourselves.
1900s: Existentialism Movement where we defined our own meaning of life. Postmodernism in the 70s said there is no metanarrative or no way to say who you are or how you got here. We were born in an age that triumphed relativism and individualism. Rather than discovering the objective truth, we were taught to define our own subjective truth.
2000s: We have successfully thrown off the shackles of institutionalized definition of truth or reality of right and wrong. We’ve triumphed freedom as our highest good. This was elevated in our elementary classrooms. “I can handle it. I can make it happen. I am me and I am enough.” The salvation of our childhood was found in ourselves. And we carried it into adulthood. You define you. You do you.
Following our hearts doesn’t work when our hearts must also be the source of where we are going and how to get there. We are destroying ourselves by trying to follow ourselves.
Like the alluring but destructive creatures in Greek mythology, self is a Siren. We are indeed attracted to ourselves.
Let’s admit we are not enough, and turn to the God who is.
Believe-in-yourselfism was born out of two other false gospels:
1. Moralistic Therapeutic Deism was first coined in 2005. Summed up: There is a god, he wants us to be happy and nice to others. He’s only needed when one of those values is threatened.
2. Health/wealth gospel: You and I can be healthy and wealthy as long as we have enough faith.
So what do we do to get out of the worldview of self and turn our focus on Jesus?
1. Confession and prayer. Confession is the gateway to joy. Apart from God, we can do nothing.
2. Read and study who God is in the Word. “Bible literacy matters because it protects us from falling into error. Both the false teacher and the secular humanist rely on Biblical ignorance for their messages to take root and the modern church has proven fertile ground for those messages.”
3. Gather with the people of God.
We become what we behold.
We are transformed by what we love.
With the Spirit’s help, we can order our loves.
The good life is found in losing it.
No one drifts towards cross-carrying.
People don’t drift towards holiness.
We drift towards compromise and call it tolerance.
We drift towards disobedience and call it freedom.
We drift towards self.
It was in beholding Him, that joy came.
