What About Me?

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   I've never been much of a country music fan. I know in some circles that is tantamount to heresy. However, I have enjoyed some of Toby Keith's songs from time to time, particularly his patriotic songs like "Courtesy of the Red, White, and Blue" and especially "American Soldier." However, one of his songs, I think, captures an important aspect of fallen human nature. The chorus of his song "I Wanna Talk About Me" goes like this, "I wanna talk about me, I wanna talk about i. Wanna talk about number one, oh my, me my. What I think, what I like, what I know, what I want, what I see. I like to talk about you, you, you, you usually, but occasionally, I wanna talk about me."

   Sin has corrupted every person to the extent that we are by nature selfish and self-centered. I am my own favorite subject. I am my own best defense attorney and advocate. I can play the victim at times better than anyone I know, because it's all about me.

   In Luke 9, soon after Peter's confession, Jesus tells the disciples that He would be rejected, crucified, and raised up on the third day. Then Luke records this, "And He was saying to them all, 'If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it. For what is a man profited if he gains the whole world, and forfeits himself (Luke 9:23-25)?" 

   Receiving new life in Christ requires the death of the old life and the old nature. Here, Jesus is telling us that this must be a daily decision to take up the cross of Christ, to remind ourselves of what He has done for us, and to act knowing that greater things await us than anything we can grasp from this world. Rather than making much of ourselves, let us strive daily to deny ourselves, even to die to ourselves, so that we might make much of Christ.