One of the more impacting books I’ve read in the last 40 years is “The Kingdom of Self” by Earl Jaybay. He was a clinically trained chaplain at a renowned psychiatric clinic who worked with a lot of addicted people. He found their biggest problem wasn’t their addiction; it was their false belief they had the power to control their addiction! Their continued freedom rested on whether they continued to live a life of surrendered lifestyle. Founders of Alcoholics Anonymous found the same thing to be true. Freedom from alcohol was when addicts live out submission to God’s authority, whom AA later called their higher power. It is like Jesus taught us to pray, Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10, ESV).
In college, one of my favorite songs was the Sammy Davis Jr. song “I Gotta Be Me. – I’ll go it alone.” It is all about me. As humans, we don’t want anyone’s help unless they will make me feel better about me—even if it is only for a few minutes. History has shown that a world based upon selfish thinking only results in wars whether they be between nation, husband and wife or even pastor and parishioner. Being king of our life is not as good as we imagine.
A paradox sounds ridiculous but is a hidden truth. It is a quirk in logic that demonstrates how our thinking sometimes goes haywire, even when we use perfectly logical reasoning to get there. The Bible is inundated with paradoxes. A classic one is Luke 9:23-24 (NLT2) [Jesus] said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it. Earl Jaybay found this be exactly true for those he worked with. Yet is goes against every fiber of our culture today. The prevailing attitude today is, “I can do and be whatever I want, and you’re an idiot, bigot and graceless if you try to stop me.” A recent news article reported a high school football player head-butting an official — sending him flying backward, all because the referee threw a flag on his selfish choice. He had to be restrained in his intentions to do the same to another official.
There are two kingdoms in your life that are in conflict, the culture of this world and the culture of the kingdom of God. Every hour you and I breathe we must decide whether we are going to choose to follow our selfish desires (kingdom of self) or what God says in His word it the right way (kingdom of God). Those decisions can be about our sexual feelings, our eating or spending habits, how we treat others (especially family), or what we watch or read. Paul described it this way, So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members (Romans 7:21-23, NIV).
Consider the most recent inner battles with which you’ve been wrestling. Our Lord is watching you wrestle and is cheering you on to follow what He has instilled within your spirit to be the right choice. Each choice you make to deny your selfish ways is a step towards becoming more like Jesus who lived in the world (kingdom of self) but was not of this world (kingdom of God). I have personally gone through extreme agony wrestling with my way or God’s way. While it was mental and emotional torture to go through, I have no regrets for choosing His way.