Clean Inside?

Selfishness will never yield righteousness.

Most who claim to follow Yeshua will never find the narrow and difficult road of praying their way out of the selfishness we all inherited from the fall of man in Genesis 3.

Almost no one thinks they are selfish.  Almost everyone thinks everyone else is at least a little selfish.  Those two thoughts can't both be right ;)

A few will pray their way out of the selfishness we all inherited, though. Those that are not of this world because they prayed their way out of self-saving, selfish ambition, self-improvement, self-leadership, and self-focus (shame and pride) will rule and reign over a selfless kingdom with Jesus for 1,000-years.

Matthew 7:11-15 NKJV — “If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him! “Therefore, whatever you want men to do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets. “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. “Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it. “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.

I've met many people who seemed selfless on the outside, but the more I got to know them, the more I saw their interior motivation was not selflessness, but self-saving. They were clean on the outside, but not on the inside.

Jesus calls that hypocrisy.

Talking about God while not letting Him into the inner life is worse than not talking about God at all!  Hot or cold are both better than lukewarm!

Matthew 23:25-27 NKJV — “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence. “Blind Pharisee, first cleanse the inside of the cup and dish, that the outside of them may be clean also. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.

Very few have I ever met that the more I got to know them, the more I saw Jesus.  There have been a few, though.  They have changed my life forever.

I am praying to be one that is consistently like Jesus no matter how deep my thinking, emotions, and will are uncovered.  

Sam and I don't spend our time in daily prayer meetings because we are selfless.  We spend our time there because we aren't, but have a vision for asking and receiving more of Jesus in our thinking, emotions, and wills.

Prayer is literally the only way to grow in selflessness because it takes an answer outside of myself to grow selfless. Trying to make myself selfless is the epitome of self-saving!  

I have to leave it all and follow the only Selfless One!

2 Timothy 3:1-7 NKJV — But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away! For of this sort are those who creep into households and make captives of gullible women loaded down with sins, led away by various lusts, always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.

Most people I've ever gone to church with would rather know about Jesus, and want other people to know they know Jesus, than let Jesus really know them.  That is why the church is being sifted and much of it is failing to love and produce real selfless righteousness in our day. The tares are being gathered. So are the wheat.  What am I being gathered into right now?

Matthew 7:20-23 NKJV — “Therefore by their fruits you will know them. “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. “Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ “And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’

I want to be one who comes out of the reputation of knowing God and into the reality of Him knowing all my need, my selfish ways, and changing me because I specifically conversed with Him about it, listened as He identified my need, and asked Him to be my God over that need.  I do that by prophetic prayer... listening to Him... and agreeing with him about it in front of others (His Body, or Him fully) that also want to change.

James 5:16-20 NKJV — Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit. Brethren, if anyone among you wanders from the truth, and someone turns him back, let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save a soul from death and cover a multitude of sins.

Most people that read this post have never been to church meetings like the Bible describes, where they actually walked out personally known, clean, changed, humbled, merciful, and ready for more death of self!

It's not too late until it is.