The path to radical ruin is wide and easy. It is made possible by following our own desires.
It looks like this:
-Make choices based on your interests.
-Do what you think best.
-Do whatever your gut instinct tells you.
-Do whatever makes you feel good.
-Don’t worry about how you affect someone else.
-Don’t think about the consequences about anything. Just do it.
This is the life of radical ruin. It looks strangely like the normal life of an animal. Yet, you are not an animal, in that you have a choice. There is another path you can join. The path to radical goodness.
Created in the image of God, in part, means you can choose.
Here is the choice. Either you choose a life apart from God or a life set apart by God. This is the meaning of the word “holy.” “To be set apart.”
The way to holy living begins and ends with self-denial. This is the anecdote to self-worship. Now, this doesn’t mean self-rejection. It is not designed to take away our dignity and become a doormat for the world, allowing everyone to step all over us.
Self-denial is dying to having to be the center of the universe and allowing Jesus to rule on the throne of your life. Death to self brings life in Christ. The ultimate reference point in your life becomes God. You live according to what he wants rather than what you want.
Living with Jesus on the throne of your life, where he lives for you and through you, brings about a restoration of your very soul. You can do what he wants rather than what you want. You can become the kind of person who lives in his Kingdom now as he desires you to live. As the words of the ancient psalm proclaim,
Psalm 23:3 (KJV)
He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
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