A ‘me’ Oriented New Year
14 Jan 2011 Leave a Comment
I am sooooo terrible at updating my blog. And apparently, among bloggers, this is a common problem. Why is that? We update Facebook and Twitter in the blink of an eye without even giving it any second thought. For me, I think it’s because I don’t think anyone ever reads my blog… except my mom. 
So, the problem is a need to be heard. Or rather, a want. Which shows me that I really do care about what other people think about me. I am a ‘me’ oriented person. And no matter how hard I try to make the focus of my life Jesus Christ, I always end up referring back to my own preferences. I’ve come to realize that this is because I am trying to do this in my own power. I can’t take the focus off of me if I am trying to do it myself, and even if I somehow succeeded, I would have defeated the purpose. So my prayer this new year is that I can find it within myself to let go. I want to let go of the parts of me that still seek to be in control and let Christ really be the one who controls my decisions, my creativity, and my life. This is really hard for me, because I am a control freak. Not only do I want to know when and where things are happening, I also want to know how and why, and I want to be able to make them be the way I think they should be and go the way I think they should go. And so, letting go of what I want and what I think should happen is a big step. Here again is something that will only happen if I let God do it for me and in me. I am so incredibly incapable and unworthy of anything God wants to do in my life that I can only accept it as the free gift that it is and stop trying to earn it on my own. The ‘me’ oriented person that I was and still am at times would never be able to even thank God correctly for what He has done in my life already and what He is going to do in the future.
Romans 5:1-2 says, “Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. We have also obtained access through Him by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.”
So even though I am still a person who likes to think of myself before others, I have obtained access to the power of God through my faith in Him and I have the hope of His glory in the future.
Romans 6:1-4, 8-9 says, “What should we say then? Should we continue in sin so that grace may multiply? Absolutely not! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Or are you unaware that all of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too may walk in a new way of life… Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with Him, because we know that Christ, having been raised from the dead, will not die again, Death no longer rules over Him.
The path the world leads us along will ultimately lead to death and for some reason we refuse to face the consequences even when they are right in our faces. When we crucify the ‘me’ oriented person that loves this world, death no longer has any power over us.
This New Year I let go of the ‘me’ who is leading me down the path of destruction, and you know, when I put it like that, it doesn’t sound like that big of a sacrifice after all…..
