Echo Detroit

We met Abram today and learned about God's covenant with him...especially about Him blessing those who bless His children. We practiced blessing His children by blessing each other! Precious...

There is a river...

I drive by this 'hidden' river on my way to Toni's, and it delights me so much, that I now look forward to that part of the drive and I find myself singing...'there is a river whose streams make glad the city of our God...'
May His hidden river flowing thru His scattered saints delight and refresh you as you pass thru this life, and may you experience His delight in you as you pursue Him.

Do nothing from selfishness...

Selfishness = eritheia from eritheuo ("to work as a day-laborer")... apparently day-laborers were so stereotyped as self-seeking that the verb associated with day-laboring came to serve as the verb for being self-seeking, or more accurately, "demeaning themselves for gain"... serving for purpose of meeting personal, momentary needs or desires.

Well, now, that certainly fits my behavior quite often! All day long I choose behavior that serves my personal, momentary desires. Sure, I also do things to serve others, and sometimes I serve others and myself at the same time. But all of us struggle with this, I suppose... dcTalk sings it well: "The disease of self runs through my blood, it's a cancer fatal to my soul. Every attempt on my behalf has failed to bring this sickness under control. Tell me, what's going on inside of me? I despise my own behaviour..."

But the song goes on ...

"This only serves to confirm my suspicions that I'm still a man in need of a Saviour!"

Well, sure! That's the point, right? We still need Him.

But, also happily, I see something else in Paul's admonition in Philippians 2:3:

"Do nothing from selfishness" he says... the comfort I drew from this today was that, even though we have this "disease of self" we can choose something... we can choose to "do nothing" from that sickness... we can choose to not let the sickness dictate our behavior. We aren't bound to the selfishness, thank God.

I also appreciate that Paul (the kind fellow) gives a suggestion for making alternative behavior choices...

"With humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves."

The way to denying self is in choosing humility, that is, lowering yourself to bless another person.

So.... let's do that, okay?