Day Four: Beliefs that Get in the Way of Serving Part One: Me, Myself, and I

This week I would like to take some time to look at beliefs in the church that hinder the development of a servant’s spirit. I’m sure there are many, but these are the ones that stand out to me.

If the twentieth century was the century of the Spirit, I wonder if the twenty-first century will be remembered as the century of the “self.” Selfishness is nothing new, but selfishness in the guise of moderation and empowerment as widely accepted and practiced as it is today is a new twist on an age old sin.

Books, sermons, and seminars from multiple denominations and backgrounds now dedicate much of a Christian’s focus to himself or herself. Believing in myself, what’s the Bible have to say about me, how the church can help me attain my goals, my issues that make me behave the way I do, reaching my dreams, making time for myself. The most unholy trinity of me, myself, and I wrapped in “healthy” Christian practice.

There is a place for self-reflection and self-care. Jesus pulled away from the crowd, spent time with his friends, and spoke with his heavenly Father, but what is often seen in the church is not this healthy moderation, but an engorged version of it. Often the most dangerous beliefs are not those that are wrong, but those that are out of proportion. What should be a natural, small part of a Christian’s life now consumes it all.

It’s like the scholar who never leaves the classroom. He trains and studies and knows all this information, but he never writes a work on it, never teaches another soul, never uses what he knows out in the world. The training, which is vitally important for him, pushes everything else out of his life. Rather than having a full balanced life, he becomes hung up on his personal need to know more.

Christians do this every day. They take part in every self-esteem class offered at the church, discuss with their small group how much they would like to do for God after he frees them from these issues, and say they will volunteer once this class on realizing your dream is done. But they never test their self-esteem by trying something new for God, they never step out of their issues by doing something for someone else, and they will never volunteer because there is always another class that “would help me so much.”

In her book God’s Missionary, Amy Carmichael talks about the entanglements of “recreation” or doing things to relax, not as inherently bad, but as activities that have a place. At that time she was addressing the self-focus of the missionaries in India when she asked, “Comrades in the war of God, has not something got out of its place? It is not time we called a halt and searched ourselves in the searchlight of the cross?”  

The question is still a good one to asked. When it comes to the very good practices of self-care and self-reflection, “has something got out of its place?” Let us look at our own lives and hearts in the searchlight of the Cross and then by the power of the cross change those things that hinder us from giving all to God and others.