Purify Your Mind Series (Part 3) by Joe KirbyNäide

Let Me Take a Selfie!

"So Samuel said, 'When you were little in your own eyes, were you not head of the tribes of Israel? And did not the Lord anoint you king over Israel?'" (1 Samuel 15:17)

You probably know the story well. Saul was anointed as the first king over Israel; as long as he was meek, and saw himself unworthy to be a servant of God, he saw the Lord’s blessing on his life. But over time, Saul’s heart became corrupted by self-importance, and it turned him to sin and arrogance. We should daily be seeking to only view ourselves as small in our own eyes, because far too often, many people see themselves as large in their own eyes.

When my parents were young, they used to go to a national park to view a waterfall; they took a picture of it, and were staggered by the beauty of the waterfall every time they looked at the photo. Today, while visiting this park, many people take a “selfie” with the waterfall behind them. Suddenly, the focus of the photo isn’t the large, beautiful waterfall, but their large head and this tiny waterfall in the background.

Where is your focus? On yourself or the magnitude of Christ? When we see ourselves as big in our eyes, we are easily deceived into believing we deserve this release, we deserve that pleasure, because we’ve worked hard, and we need to unwind. But what we call “self-care” is really just selfishness. Let’s take our eyes off self and fix our eyes on the vastness of Christ, and our fleshly desires will seem insignificant compared to obeying this vast God.