Human Problems
I've looked at hundreds of Facebook profiles recently and one of the most popular answers to "Religious Views" is "Still Searching". There are over six billion people on this small planet and most are aimlessly navigating through the foggy maze of religion, believing they are on a path of spiritual health and well-being when in reality they're simply lost in a sea of confusion and doubt. Just like your physical body, what you feed upon directly affects your spiritual health and well-being. Fortunately, we do not have to spend years searching and following systems of religion in order to find spiritual bliss. The problems of man can be summed up in one word "self".
The self is the one and only thing we own. It is the one thing we brought into the world and it is the only thing we will take out of this world, and the one thing we have to live with intimately day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute.
There are two schools of thought and attitude toward the self - the school of self-realization and the school of self-renunciation. Both these schools of thought and attitude miss God's attitude toward the self. This "miss" is important, for if you take the wrong attitude toward your self it is vital, for your self is not a subject of discussion but a point of decision. In self-realization you try to realize your self, for all the answers are in you. This is the law of attraction, the power of positive believing. In the Bible it was called the tree of knowledge of good and evil. In self-renunciation, you deny all physical pleasures of the soul and cut your self off from the world but still lack the life freely given to us by God.
It was in the Garden of Eden where Adam enjoyed a life in oneness with the creator. The self did not exist. When Adam disobeyed God and "ate" of the tree of knowledge, "self" entered the world. Adam was cut off from God and was no longer a reflection of the image of God. The self would now rule mankind until there came a redeemer who by his obedience would pay the price for Adam's transgression and bridge the gap between God and man. By one mans obedience, Jesus became that bridge and God created new life for all who believed on him. It is this new life created in every born again believer that once again reflects the image of God. The life of every born again believer is hid in Christ and identified with him. Christ is now your life and you have the opportunity to surrender your old self to this new life.
In this self-surrender you surrender your self to Jesus Christ, for all the answers are in him. One leaves you centered on you, a self-centered and self-preoccupied person, albeit a religious person. The other loses his self and finds it. For self-realization only comes through self-surrender. You realize your self when you realize him, and you realize your self when you surrender to him.
What you think about your self determines whether you live in heaven or hell now, for your self is your heaven or hell now. You are being made whole daily as you put on the new you through the mind of Christ. God sees you as identified in Christ. You are one with God. You cannot separate or divide one
Someone once said, "The most used word in hell is I." A friend once told me, "Everywhere I go 'I' spoil everything." A skeptic once said: "I'm glad I don't believe in eternal life. I wouldn't want to live with myself forever." To be centered in your self is to be in hell now. The symptoms of the self-centered are the same everywhere and they are these: "I am what I am because you are what you are. If you were different I would be different. It is all your fault." The self-centered blame their problems on others. The self at the center is off-center and hence the recurring problems, individual and collective.
This is the center of the diseases of humanity; all else is symptom, this is the disease. Quacks treat symptoms, doctors treat diseases. Will your faith be of your self treating the symptoms of individual and world diseases? Or will it be the faith of Jesus Christ, the great physician, putting his finger on the spot, the sore spot of the world's problems?
Will that touch be healing?
