As  humans, our fall stemmed from “wanting to be like God” as in Gen 3:5. Dying to ourselves is something that we Christians find hard to do.We are hard-wired to seek our own will above anyone else’s. We want our way in life and we all have a tendency to see things from our point of view, and define the world by how we  see it. We can not deny this tendency being  displayed as we witness this behaviour very early in infancy.

Dear Lord Jesus,

Whenever I encounter situations to gratify my carnal nature, when I am at this mid point, rather than choosing to be self centred,remind me to keep me away from the pride and self.Help me  to walk beside You in humility.In essence I will always attract people around me to Your mighty Name in small and humble ways of my daily living. In your name, Amen

By nature man is self-centred and self-interested. Thus a lot of the aspects of pride that characterised the first man, also characterise us. And “pride” keeps us from receiving God’s love so that we are so full of ourselves and  are inclined to think that our need for God is not that great.

The pride that is inbuilt within our earthly nature as we chase after other lovers in an effort to please ourselves – that is the essence of idolatry. Idolatry takes many forms – a relationship we value more than God; the desire for material wealth that is greater than our love for God; the desire to draw attention to ourselves rather than directing the attention of others towards God. The world is full of idols that dethrone God from our hearts. 

 “We used to walk in these ways, in the lies we once lived. But now, put to death therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature the wrath of God is coming because of  sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry. Getting  rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander and filthy language from our lips.“ (Colossians 3:5-11, NIV)

The Bible says the story of Naaman who is the captain of  the host of the king of Syria who accepted the advice of a very junior King as in  II Kings: Even though the servant was a young girl who was in exile, Naaman was so helpless in his situation that he took the advice of the servant girl.

A litmus test in life situations  as we reach the end of the rope now is that  we accept the advice of a very junior, humble, simple person without any bitterness, anger or judgement but expressed with humility, we live in peace and can prove our dying to ourselves.