One of the barriers that holds nine people back from knowing, do laundry, and being controlled by the love of Jesus, is the idea that true happiness only can be found, if I am free to live for myself.
Leaving for yourself is a default mechanism is an option for every person. This means unless something happens to bring about a change we end up living for ourselves. The Bible says it quite clearly, “ RC clear own interests and not those of Jesus Christ.” (Philippians 2:21).
I want you to see the absolute misery of living this way.
If you live for yourself, you make yourself both the boss and the servant. You put yourself on both sides of the ledger. You are the one who is served, and you are the one who does the serving. They demand you sick. are they demand you must meet. The experience of a person who lives for self is like “ robbing Peter, to pay Paul,” and you are always in conflict.
If you live for yourself, you will be in the strange position of beating yourself up because you are unhappy. See if any of these profiles sound familiar.
The Displeased Beauty
You look in the mirror and see the boss is not happy because they want to have a more pleasing image. Though you have been woven together, wonderfully by God, all you see are the imperfections of face and body. Fashion magazines are where we go for a blueprint of how a young woman you’re supposed t look like in critical and materialistic world. Your self as the boss is perpetually displeased, no matter how much time you spend on going to the gym, or putting on makeup, or dressing to please the world’s tastes, that tells you that you measure up.
So you beat up on your self (the servant) for not being pretty enough of handsome enough no matter what you do. Instead of soaking in God‘s truth, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made, you punish yourself with lies that say no one will ever love you because you’re not perfect enough. So you bring to mind the fear associated with rejection from ugliness. You tell yourself to step up and cultivate beauty, of else you will be lost forever in the world that tramples over uninteresting people.
The Disappointed Retiree
When you look at your life, and your self, as the boss says, you should have accomplished more. When you look past the decades, all you see are broken family relationships that have yet to be mended and the years of your unsatisfying work you accuse yourself of wasting time, gifts, and money trying to be someone you never became. You asked yourself you eat good come from my life?
Who’s to blame? Yourself, the servant who turned to drinking wave of memories, and holds himself up in your home. You deserve it, resolved that this life with no contribution to anyone, so there is no use putting forth any more effort. You decide to simply put on a mask at fault contentment for the rest of your days, and hope no one noticed you failed. How many people in your lifetime do you know that done this? I for one don’t want to be that person.
The Frantic Executive
You as the boss, consider your work achievements and bank accounts, and there’s never pleased. Do you work at executive of your life? Who’s job it is you watch over others. You micromanage your self, because money and approval leads to happiness, so, if either is laughing, you are displeased, and irritated at the people that you look out for. (Whether it be family, friend, or at work.) maybe you fear that you failed. Maybe look over at your neighbor as they pull in to the driveway with a brand new car. And think if I would’ve taken care of my finances, my family better. I would have all the things they have. I’ll just have to try harder.
So, yourself as a servant begin to working yourself to death trying get to the point of living like your next-door neighbor. You’ll have to make more money and get your family more organized to be ready buy more expensive items and earn the good glances of others. But you will never be fully satisfied, because at the end of the day, you are no happier than when you were awoke.
The Concerned Parent
Do you ever look at your children and see your opportunity for academic success, good, physical, help, and lifetime of happiness? As parents, we expect perfection, and our ability to guide, teach, and nurture our children. I wish standard issue right children, who reflect positively on all the hard work we’ve done for so many years.
Yet, when are children don’t turn out the way we think they should. We increasingly stress when our children make poor decisions, the have troubles of their own. So, we cry ourselves to sleep and wonder where we went wrong. We become more fearful for the outcome of our children, because we have determined that their success was in your hands. I’ve been their with a adult child, making wrong decisions about their lives. I used to wonder “Where did I go wrong?”
All I can say, is that it’s a good thing. God doesn’t beat us up as much as we beat ourselves up, not just with parenting, but every aspect of our lives.
Our Hard Work
If we consider all the good fruit that we’ve done in our past lives as we boss and servant ourselves around. It is important to see the good fruit in our life over the years. See the kindness, self-control and love we’ve done in all situations over the course of time – that’s how God sees us.
He only wants the best for us, I think of many morning spent studying Bible and praying for my family and spending time with great friends. So instead of struggling through your life, try seeing yourself as God sees you. Sometimes I feel that God has a checklist of our good works and sees us in good shape. A whole lot better than we see ourselves.
When we see that the fruit of humility is missing don’t beat yourself up. Try to understand what we must do to fix our problems, prayer, reading your Bible, and speak to God life a friend, tell Him your wrongs and your rights.
He will show you a way to get rid of the misery we have put ourselves in. We don’t have to be “boss and servant,” over ourselves. When we Give our burdens to God we will receive beauty for our ashes.
From Pity to Praise 