THE LOSER IN US CALLED SELF-WORSHIPER

³ You shall have no other gods before Me. ⁴ You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. ⁵ You shall not bow down to idols or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate Me, ⁶ but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love Me and keep My commandments. EXODUS 20

Exodus 20:2-6 is Commandment No. 2. It forbids idolatry, which Webster defines as (1) the worship of a physical object as a god; and (2) immoderate attachment or devotion to something.

Idolatry divinizes what is not God. It makes us want to achieve our goals by relying on the power of a creation, not on the power of the Creator. It comes largely in four forms: Worship of graven images, Self-worship, Obsession, and Sorcery.

Self-Worship

The 2011 earth population approximates 7.0 billion. Is our planet burdened now with the weight of 7.0 billion self-worshipers? The answer seems to be Yes.

Why? Because people everywhere take care of their flesh but not their soul. Their god is their appetite (Philippians 3:19). They rely on human power (theirs and others) in organizing and managing their affairs, not on God’s power. They set aside God’s instructions and insist on doing things their way. Submission and humility before God are gone. They prefer to pay than pray and to play than pray. Those who pray are more often than not a case of telling God what He could do to please them, and not asking God what they could do to please Him. If things do not turn out as they have planned, they blame God.

Can you imagine of an instance more ridiculous than this: False gods imposing their will upon the real God?

LOVE is not the order of the day. To them Bible study and soul-winning are a waste of time. They would rather go malling and enterprising. They would rather use their gifts of strength and reasoning to impose their will upon their neighbors. If ever they do good deeds, it is to please themselves or the object of their pleasure, but not God. They appropriate unto themselves the honors and glories that rightfully belong to God. 

They profess belief in God yet live without God. Atheists and agnostics are more honest.

He who makes God No. 2 and himself No. 1 is guilty of self-worship. He who organizes and manages his affairs by relying on his power, not on God’s power, is guilty of self-worship. He whose basic drive in life is to satisfy his selfish desires is guilty of self-worship. He who pleases himself before he pleases God is guilty of self-worship.

Another word for self-worship is self-centeredness. It is the father of faithlessness, greed and irresponsibility. Two other words for it are self-condemnation and self-destruction.

⁵ This is what the Lord says: Cursed is the one who relies on man, who depends on flesh for his strength and whose heart turns away from the Lord. JEREMIAH 17

Self-worship bleeding everyone to death was prophesied 2,000 years ago.

¹ There will be terrible times in the last days. ² People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, ³ without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of good, ⁴ treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure than lovers of God— ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them. 2 TIMOTHY 3

¹⁰ Many will be purified, made spotless and refined, but the wicked will continue to be wicked. None of the wicked will understand, but those who are wise will understand. DANIEL 12

The Root

Self-worship can be traced in the human desire to act like God. It started in the Garden of Eden when Lucifer said to our first parents:   

⁵ …when you eat of [the forbidden fruit] your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. GENESIS 3 

The suggestion “You will be like God” had stimulated in them a desire so strong that they disobeyed God’s instruction not to eat from the tree of life. The same desire haunts the modern man. Little does he know that yielding to it is echoing the mind of Lucifer (Isaiah 14:13-14).

As for Lucifer, he failed to superimpose his will over that of God, but he is succeeding in making the humankind do it to God. Man might think that in so doing he is servicing his own selfish interests, but the truth is, he is servicing the selfish interests of Lucifer. The creation imposing its will over its Creator? Lucifer loves it!

Christian Discipleship

“The world teaches us to be independent-minded, to be independent even of God. But the reality is, we are not designed to function independent of God. We miss the mark when we choose to act independently of God,” said Neil T. Anderson. “When we focus on ourselves or prefer material and temporal values than spiritual or eternal values, idolatry has succeeded.” (The Bondage Breaker, p. 39).

For us to attain restoration of our original blessed state (the purpose why we exist on earth), we must learn to be God-dependent.

Rick Warren said, “There is a God who made you for a reason, and your life has profound meaning! We discover that meaning and purpose only when we make God the reference point of our lives. The Message paraphrase of Romans 12:3 says, ‘The only accurate way to understand ourselves is by what God is and by what He does for us.’ (Purpose-Driven Life, p. 25)

“Without God life makes no sense. Without a purpose, life is motion without meaning, activity without direction, and events without reason. Without a purpose, life is trivial, petty, and pointless. (p. 30) Without a clear purpose you have no foundation on which you base decisions, allocate your time, and use your resources. You will tend to make choices based on circumstances, pressures, and your mood at that moment. People who do not know their purpose try to do too much—and that causes stress, fatigue, and conflict. (p. 31) Without clear purpose you will keep changing directions, jobs, relationships, churches, or other externals—hoping each change will settle the confusion or fill the emptiness in your heart. (p. 32)”

⁴ Remain in Me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in Me. ⁵ I am the Vine and you are the branches. If a man remains in Me, and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from Me you can do nothing. ⁶ If anyone does not remain in Me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned… ⁹ Now remain in My love. ¹⁰ If you obey My commands, you will remain in My love, just as I have obeyed My Father’s commands and remain in His love. JOHN 15

For us to attain restoration, we must be reconfigured, re-created. God must be allowed to do it for us; do we not try to do it on our own and fail each time we do? We have to humble ourselves, stop acting as if we were God and submit instead like clay to the Potter.

Being God-dependent and allowing God to reconfigure us is what the Ten Commandment is all about, what the Old Testament is all about, what Christian discipleship is all about…

Allow God and He would say anew, “Let us make man in our image, in our likeness” (Genesis 1:26). God would waste no time in reconfiguring us. At the end of the day, we would be able to testify, “I am being transformed into the likeness of my Master with ever increasing glory” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

²⁵ The [disciple] should be satisfied to become like his Teacher, and a slave like his Master. MATTHEW 10 tev

“Being a Christian is like the caterpillar that sheds the likeness of an earthbound worm and puts on the likeness of a heaven-bound butterfly,” said John Avanzini. “Salvation is shedding the old nature of the first Adam and putting on the new nature of (Y’shua) the second Adam.” (It’s Not Working Brother John!, p. 33). 

¹⁴ Clothe yourselves with the Lord Y’shua. ROMANS 13

Y’shua is the visible image of “true righteousness and holiness,” the essence of God’s image and likeness. To be Y’shua-like should be our aspiration and our goal.   

⁴ Christ is the end of the Law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who believes. ROMANS 10

²⁶ Whoever serves Me must follow Me; and where I am, My [disciple] also will be. JOHN 12 

²² You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³ to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴ and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. EPHESIANS 4

“We should want to handle situations the way Y’shua would handle them and treat people the way Y’shua would treat them. We should want to do things the way He would do them. That should be our goal,” said Joyce Meyer (A Leader in the Making, p. 224).

“Only when we are dependent on God and intent on following Christ are we complete and free to prove that the will of God is good, acceptable and perfect (Romans 12:2),” said Neil T. Anderson.

BE GOD'S CO-WORKER TO THE WORLD

After your family is harmonized and ruled by LOVE, what next?

Go public and save more souls. Be a coworker of God to the world. Today billions of souls are disoriented and lost due to false teachings.

Help the rich and the famous. They pre-occupy themselves with fortune-building, rushing for appointments, staying sexy, vacationing, partying, whiling away boredom, getting addicted or obsessed with something.

And help the poor. They pre-occupy themselves with dreaming of aping the lifestyle of the rich and the famous while keeping poverty at bay; with slowly wasting away from a sickness or two; and with trying to move on from one frustration, hurt or incapacity to another.

Do not give up the fight. Lucifer might not show it but at this stage, you have earned his respect. For you have pulled your family away from his hands. You have the credentials and the personal testimony of a victor. You have grown into a seasoned warrior; fear is removed from you. You have merited the favor of God. You are well-versed in using Spirit-empowerment.

You would enter the bigger arena battle-scarred and tested. Nobody would have to baby-sit you. You would be an asset, not a liability, to the cause. Your fellow coworkers would see in you a big-hearted, knowledgeable and dependable co-warrior. You could relate with the disoriented and the lost; your words and actions bear moral authority; they would listen to you.     

Expect Lucifer to contest your soul-winning nonetheless (Revelation 12:17). His demonic forces and human agents will pick on human weaknesses and faults (yours and your neighbors’) to intrigue, frustrate, rebuff and irk you, to break up your love-relationships, to make you quit. Do not give them the satisfaction.

Keep on building up. Do not quit on anyone—not even on the human agents of Lucifer, for they too are part of the target souls of Y’shua’s ministry. 

Understand that the neighborhood is a plate of fallible and flawed beings. Everyone (you included) commits mistakes and causes problems. God has bunched us in this setting to test us in LOVE and faithfulness. Instead of being frustrated or irked, instead of breaking up LOVE-relationships or giving up the fight, learn to be compassionate: first to your erring self and then to your erring neighbors.

Lucifer used the apostle Judas Iscariot, Y’shua’s best friend, to betray Him. The apostle John ran away and abandoned Him to His arresters. Three times Peter denied his association with Him. The other apostles hid in great fear for their lives. The Son of Man could have given up on them but He did not. He resurrected and went back for them.

Y’shua did not give up on Saul either, the great persecutor of the early Christians. And the perseverance paid off handsomely. Saul became St. Paul who, like Peter and John, transformed into a tireless teacher of the faith, a miracle worker and an undaunted martyr.

¹ Therefore, since through God’s mercy, we have this ministry, we do not lose heart. ¹⁶ Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. ¹⁷ For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. 2 CORINTHIANS 4

Fight corporate. Fighting alone the evil empire (a large and well-organized army) is like stopping the tsunami with bare hands. Fight as a member of the Church; coordinate your intentions and get your specific assignment. Learn fast of the power to be gained in corporate unity, planning and organization. Strictly speaking, it is the Church (the collective whole) and not you that must fight it out with the evil empire. So work with the Church. Corporate resistance is a must. 

This explains the prayer of Y’shua:      

²⁰ My prayer is not for [My disciples] alone. I pray also for those who will believe in Me through their message, ²¹ that all of them may be one, Father, just as You are in Me and I am in you. JOHN 17

Carry your cross well. The task of soul-winning requires urgency. Your target souls might die this afternoon or tonight. Or to put it bluntly, you might die. Every tick of the clock counts. It is like saving a life from drowning or from falling from the edge of a cliff.

⁹ You must rescue everyone while there is still time. JEREMIAH 6 

The task also requires selflessness. This explains why only the matured should be at the warfront. And who is the matured? He does not hesitate to risk everything, his life included, to get the job done. The one knowledgeable in the Word of God and lives by it. The success in harmonizing his family in LOVE. He who prays instead of worrying. He who has overcome fear, trusting that God can restore everything he put on the line.

¹ Since the Messiah suffered and underwent pain, you must have the same attitude He did; you must be ready to suffer, too. For remember, when your body suffers, sin loses its power, ² and you won’t be spending the rest of your life chasing after evil desires. 1 PETER 4 tlb

¹⁸ Perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love. 1 JOHN 4

¹¹ This is the message you heard from the beginning: that we should love one another… ¹⁶ This is how we know what love is: Messiah Y’shua laid down His life for us. Now we ought to lay down our lives for our brethren. 1 JOHN 3 

⁶ Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Y’shua did. 1 JOHN 2

Laying down our lives for our brethren means righteous living. Like volunteering to wash the dishes or doing the family laundry (even if we don’t feel like doing it). Kissing and embracing everyone in the house and appreciating them for what they are. Giving a seat to the old, the sick and the handicapped. Being considerate of the pedestrians when driving. Being compassionate. Crossing the line to make peace with our “enemies.”

Love-in-action is how lost souls are won over to the Lord. Paul described it and the selflessness it entails in three words: “I die everyday” (1 Corinthians 15:31).

²¹ For to me… to die is gain. PHILIPPIANS 1

Be humble. Selflessness requires humility. What is humility?

Humility is readily bending your will to the will of God.

⁴² Father… not My will, but Yours be done. LUKE 22

⁵ Your attitude should be the same as that of the Messiah Y’shua, ⁶ who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, ⁷ but made Himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant [slave], being made in human likeness. ⁸ And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to death, even death on the cross. PHILIPPIANS 2

Humility is honoring the freewill of your neighbors, not overriding it. The Son of Man used His power for others, not over others.

               ⁸ I could be bold and order you what you ought to do, ⁹ yet I appeal to you on the basis of love… ¹⁴ I did not want to do anything without your consent, so that any favor you do will be spontaneous and not forced. PHILEMON

Humility is setting examples on righteousness, leading no one to do wrong.

¹³ You have been given freedom: not freedom to do wrong, but freedom to love and serve each other. GALATIANS 5 tlb

Humility is readily confessing your faults and your wrongs, accompanying it with repentance, apology and restitution.

¹⁷ The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit. PSALM 51

Humility is not having a low opinion of yourself or thinking of yourself as inferior to others. A humble person makes a realistic assessment of himself. He is without illusion or pretense to be something he is not. A humble person does not wear a mask or put on a facade in order to look good to others. A humble person loves and serves others selflessly, for their sake, rather than his own.

LOVE YOUR FAMILY NEXT

After filling your cup with LOVE, offer to your neighbors the same unconditional LOVE, forgiveness and reconciliation that you have received from God. Broaden intrapersonal to interpersonal. Help others to be soaked too.

²⁰ Remember this: Whoever brings back a sinner from the wrong way will be saving that sinner’s soul from death and bring about the forgiveness of many sins. JAMES 5 tev

Christian churches usually equate soul-winning with taking the first available flight to one end of the earth. Please don’t do that. That is not how it works—especially if you don’t have the money.

God’s biggest challenge to each of us is to make LOVE work in our respective families. He prefers love-in-action to begin inside our own homes, in the family.

¹⁹ Go home to your family and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how He has had mercy on you. MARK 5

⁴ [The coworker of God] must manage his own family well. 1 TIMOTHY 3

⁴ [Children and grandchildren] should learn first of all to put their religion into practice by caring for their own family and so repaying their parents and grandparents, for this is pleasing to God. 1 TIMOTHY 5

Why family first? The logic is simple: Why go far in saving souls when there are souls that are wounded and dying right inside our homes?

Sad to say, many “coworkers of God” today are busybodies, helping to fix other people’s fences but neglecting their own. Isn’t it a tragic sight and a Christian contradiction? 

⁴ How can you say to your brother, “Let me take the speck out of your eye,” when all the time there is a plank in your own eye. ⁵ You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother’s eye. MATTHEW 7

“No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” declared David O. McKay, one of America’s greatest churchmen. “The relationship between society and family is like that between the human body and its cells. For the human body to function well, its cell structure must function well.” (Find Real Happiness, p. 53)

¹⁰ Let no one be found among you who sacrifices his son or daughter in the fire. DEUTERONOMY 18

⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be upon your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up… ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. DEUTERONOMY 6

Built-In Advantages. When it comes to saving our families, we have built-in advantages over the other coworkers of God. To begin with, the terrain is familiar to us. We know the weaknesses and strengths of each family member. We know the appropriate time to deal with each of them. We speak the family language. Inside our families are hearts that are readily available to hear us. We can identify them and focus the crusade on them first. After we win them, we can join forces with them in winning the rest of the family. The family member who resists love-in-action, if any, will not shoo us away because we are his own flesh and blood, a legitimate occupant of the house.

Speaking of resistance, it is likely when a seed or two of ill-will lingers between you and a family member. Y’shua said, “A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household” (Matthew 10:36). 

And how to deal with it? With the offensive remarks and actions that are thrown at your direction? Stand firm. Instead of being downhearted, accept it with gladness because it means Lucifer is trying to sidetrack you. Use the belligerence to mirror the rough edges in you and repair them.

¹ Follow the way of love. 1 CORINTHIANS 14 

¹⁵ At all times make it your aim to do good to one another and to all people. 1 THESSALONIANS 5

⁸ In Messiah Y’shua… the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. GALATIANS 5 

Words of LOVE might sound untrue but love-in-action cannot be denied. LOVE will remain an idle concept to the unbeliever, but once felt, it will melt every resistance there is. It will honor and exalt the God we profess to love. We will become most welcome to everyone.

¹⁸ We must not love with words or tongue but with actions and in truth. 1 JOHN 3 

²⁶ Just as the body without the soul is dead, so faith without [righteous] deeds is dead. JAMES 2

Our families are meant to be our initiation and practice ground on LOVE. In the secular world before anyone becomes a full-fledged educator, doctor or banker, he is required to do “practicum.” In the spiritual realm, home is where practice makes perfect.  We experience the ups and downs of loving and mature into it. We save our families from the Second Death and win souls. We gain personal testimony and moral authority. The will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Help transform your family into a God-loving family like to that of Joseph, Mary and Y’shua. It should be less difficult to win souls in it than elsewhere. 

Divine Vision.  Together let us visualize the neighborhood should everyone succeed in harmonizing his family in LOVE.

The entire neighborhood would be LOVE-infested and devil-free. Everyone would guard their thoughts, words and actions, not wanting to offend anyone, corrupt anyone, or prompt anyone to do wrong.

Nobody would have to face his problems alone. The bayanihan would come to his aid. God’s blessings would be shared in common. Covetousness, jealousy, “mining” (sense of ownership) and selfishness would be removed from everyone’s hearts.

Everyone would enter life. Nobody would be left behind; everyone would be restored. There would be no cause for sorrow. Immense joy, serenity and contentment would overflow. God’s LOVE would be made complete in us (1 John 4:12). There would be great celebration and merriment in the kingdom.