In his book "The Knowledge of the Holy", A. W. Tozer wrote: "Twentieth-century Christians has put God on charity. So lofty is our opinion of ourselves that we find it quite easy, not to say enjoyable, to believe that we are necessary to God. But the truth is that God is not greater for our being, nor would He be less if we did not exist. That we do exist is altogether of God's free determination, not by our desert nor by divine necessity. ... The Christian religion has to do with God and man, but its focal point is God, not man. Man's only claim to importance is that he was created in the divine image; in himself he is nothing."
The self-deception that Tozer wrote about is at the heart of self-idolatry. We lose sight of the fact that the very essence of who are is a gift from God. The air that we breathe, the houses we live in, the cars we drive, the children we claim as our own, our jobs, the marvellous inter-working of the various parts that makes up our bodies, we owe everything to Him. As Tozer posited, "Man is a created being, a deprived and contingent self, who of himself possess nothing but is dependent each moment for his existence upon the One who created him after His own likeness. That fact of God is necessary to the fact of man. Think God away and man has no grounds for existence." In and of himself, man can lay claim to nothing, he can do nothing, yet like that son of the morning Lucifer, we allow self to rise up to believe we can do without God. Isaiah wrote of him, "...thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north: I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will be like the most High" (14:13,14).
It is this challenge to God's selfhood in relation to our own of which the unsurrendered life is guilty. We profess acceptance of the sovereignty of God in the earth, but we are just not prepared to acknowledge His sovereignty over our lives. To complicate matters, this attitude is so subtle that we are not necessarily conscious of making that choice. To the unregenerate heart, the asserting of self is natural, a given. In our own eyes, and in our world, is a throne of our making on which we sit as kings and queens. Regardless of our station in life, and the sacrifices we make from day to day, we are never prepared to dethrone self. That is our throne, and we are not prepared to relinquish it for anything, or for anyone. Not even God.
Yet, the echo of Jesus’ words lingers. "If any person wills to come after Me, let him deny himself [disown himself, forget, lose sight of himself and his own interests, refuse and give up himself] and take up his cross daily and follow Me [cleave steadfastly to Me, conform wholly to My example in living and, if need be, in dying also]" (Luke 9:23, Amplified).
Who is sitting on your throne?
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