Giving Up on Myself

I think the starting point for participating in the transformation process that only God can accomplish in me is to formally give up on myself. Not just some vague thought that I might not be able to pull off self-righteousness, but an explicit, verbal prayer acknowledging that I am not capable of living as God wants me to.

The Bible makes it abundantly clear I can't live like I should, even when I know exactly what I should be doing. "For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do--this I keep on doing...For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!" (Romans 7:19, 22-24)

When I say "give up on myself" I mean to remind myself every day (every moment it comes to mind!) that I am "wretched" and conflicted. My mind is a war zone, and if I try to fight the battle by mustering all of my will-power and desire for self-improvement, I will lose every time. But if I admit that I need God to deliver me through Jesus Christ, then there is hope.

Practically speaking, one implication of starting with this confession is that it changes how I read the Bible. Most often I think we approach it from the self-help / self-improvement mindset. We read from Psalm 1, "Blessed are those...who delight in the law of the Lord and meditate on his law day and night," (Psalm 1:1, 2) and we assume the application of this is, "I should delight in God's word and read it regularly, meditating on it day and night." That's not a wrong interpretation, but we must first ask, "Can I do that?" Is it possible for us to simply decide what our desires will be? No doubt some people can be very disciplined and structure their outward actions and routines so that they'll read a chapter a day, or even memorize entire books of the Bible. The Pharisees and teachers of the law in Jesus' time did this. And yet we are told they missed out on the inner desire of "delighting" in the law. "Nor does his word dwell in you. For you do not believe the one he sent. You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you possess eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life." (John 5:38-40) They were not blessed in trying to apply Psalm 1 as a self-help text.

So, if I give up on myself, I change how I read Psalm 1. Instead of reading myself into it as a first step, I read Jesus as the fulfillment of Psalm 1--of the way I want to be, but can't be in my own effort. Jesus lived a completely blessed, perfect life on this earth, in the same struggles I experience. And yet Jesus did delight in God's law, and he meditated on it day and night. This despite the fact that Jesus got tired and hungry and busy and experienced all of the physical limitations that turn me from delighting in God's law.

If I begin by giving up on myself, I open myself up to the next step of asking Jesus to put his delight for God's Word into my heart. I open myself up to asking Jesus to change my desires, so I'll want to read the Scriptures as much as a starving person wants to eat bread (remember Jesus' temptation in the wilderness from Matthew 4:4..."People do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God"? He said that when he was extremely hungry after a 40 day fast). Giving up on myself makes me ready to ask Jesus to take that part of his life which fulfilled Psalm 1, and to supernaturally, through the Holy Spirit, live it in and through me.

But I won't ask until I give up on myself first.