Most lives are not made up of what are called great things, but of the small events, the little things, of daily life. In every life there is some ruling motive, some Spirit, who dwells in the heart of every saved person. The controlling motive of all who have not received the grace of God by faith in Christ is self, with all that this implies, that which Scripture calls the "carnal mind, the mind of the flesh." It is the motive that controls all mankind unless they have been wrought upon by the power of God, have accepted His mercy, and been saved from self by His power. In place of self as the ruling motive in the life of a child of God, love for Christ has become the motive for the acts of daily life.
In place of blind selfishness which seeks its own, puts self first, and claims the best of all things, the love of Christ leads, constrains, forms and fashions the daily life. There is a power in self still remaining in the believer which can only be met by the power of the Holy Spirit, who dwells in the heart of every saved person. The great mistake many Christians make is to try to overcome self by their own will-power, instead of resting on and trusting wholly in the power Christ has given us. There is a mighty power in selfishness; it is the power which controls the world, which rules mankind. How much greater the power of Christ is, He revealed all through His life here as the Son of God in the world.
No power could withstand Christ except unbelief. It kept the Jews in bondage to self when Christ was here to set them free. It is keeping people now who hear the Gospel, hear God's call to repent and turn to Him for all blessing-keeping them from turning from self to Him to be made free from sin and the power of self. Christ said, "Every one that practices sin is the servant [bondman or slave] of sin.. .If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed" (John 8:34, 36). They who sin are the slaves of sin, and Christ alone has power to set free from sin. This means free from selfishness.
When Christ sets free from selfishness, He gives love in its place, gives the Holy Spirit to fill the heart and deliver from the power of sin, of self. Not one of the religions of man can do this, nor can any system of false Christianity. No other power except that of the Holy Spirit can deliver from the bondage mankind are in, and give in its place freedom to love and please Christ. There are given in Scripture two complete pictures of what love and the indwelling Spirit of Christ impart to human conduct:
"Love suffereth long and is kind; love envieth not; love is not insolent and rash(N.T.), is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh [imputeth] no evil; rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things" (1 Cor. 13:4-7).
"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance [self-control]" (Gal. 5:22, 23).
These two descriptions give a brief summing up of what the life of the child of God is to be, of what the power of the Holy Spirit enables it to be. They show what the life is where love is the motive, and where the Spirit of God indwells, leads, and forms the life. They give the opposite character of those who are Christ's from those of the world where self rules. Selfishness expresses itself by its works which are thus catalogued by the Holy Spirit:
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, strife, jealousies, angers, contentions, disputes, schools of opinion, envyings, murders, drunkennesses, revels, and things like these; as to which I tell you beforehand, even as I also have said before, that they who do such things shall not inherit God's kingdom" (Gal. 5:19-21, J. N. D.'s Version).
This is a description of life as it is lived by those who follow their own hearts' desire, of the heart of mankind. Christianity has had a powerful restraining influence upon the world-but that is another subject. Any one can see the vast difference between the works of the flesh and the fruit of the Spirit, or the life filled with love as shown by Paul. Note that it is not the life of a believer to refrain from the works of the flesh only; there must be love; there will be the fruit of the Spirit where the Spirit dwells. It is not a sign of a Christian to refrain from manifest sins like most of those given. To be a real Christian is to show out in the daily life, the motives, the ways of Christ's love and the fruit of the indwelling of His Spirit.
"CONSIDER YOUR WAYS" cried the prophet to the returned exiles (Haggai 1:5). This is a good exhortation to every child of God. Does the Spirit of Christ lead and form the ways, the life in the home, in the office, the shop, the household, in all the daily life? Is self or Christ manifested? A selfish life, one that is always seeking to have its own way, its own comfort, its own pleasure, is not patterned after Christ. We are "not to please ourselves. Let every one of us please his neighbor for his good to edification. For even Christ pleased not Himself; but as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached Thee fell on Me" (Rom. 15:1-3). If a person's aim to please him or herself, that is not being like Christ. Was it pleasing to Him to receive hatred for His love, rejection for His mercy? Did it not cause Him great sorrow when the people to whom He came refused His goodness? He had to say of them, "They hated Me without a cause."
"When He was reviled, He reviled not again; when He suffered, He threatened not; but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously" (1 Pet. 2:23). "Be ye kind one to another, tender-hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you" (Eph. 4:32). This is the spirit that Christ manifested. Unkindness is not of Christ. "Gentleness, goodness, meekness" filling the heart and flowing out into the life, are likeness to Christ. And this explains why 1 Corinthians 13 begins as it does.
"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not love, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not love, it profiteth me nothing" (1 Cor. 13:1-3).
Christ told the busy, anxious Martha, "But one thing is needful; and Mary hath chosen that good part which shall not be taken away from her" (Luke 12:41). Communion with Christ, sitting at His feet, hearing His words, that is the one thing needful, and what is that but love in action?
Christians who are worrying because of wanting this or that should remember that the. most precious of Christ's gifts are perfectly free. You have nothing to do to gain Christ's gifts for they are priceless. You can possess them because Christ has paid for them. The greatest gift any soul can have is likeness to Christ in walk and ways and spirit. But He is dishonored by unlikeness to Him on the part of any believer, in thought, word, or ways. J. W. Newton