self centeredness on Identity

A survey in 2015 found that 91 percent of adults in the United States agreed that the best way to find yourself is by looking within yourself. Everything else flows from this conviction. The thinking ...

Almighty God, from the very beginning, You have designed us for glorious work. You have given us Your Spirit and spread before us limitless resources. Because You have made us a royal priesthood, we n...

Prayer of Adoration Father God … our Abba: You seek us with relentless love – coming after us in Your Son, Jesus. When we are in the pits – You draws us up and out; When we are broken – You fix u...

To really be gripped by your identity in God’s greatness you must wade out of the shallow waters of self-absorption into the deep waters of praising Him at all times for all things. Remember, God form...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with heart, soul, and m...

In the darkness of a Herodian prison, John the Baptist seems to have had some doubts about his cousin, Jesus of Nazareth. The man who John had declared was so far beyond him that he was unworthy to ti...

AIM Commentary Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? "Hear O Israel..." The Shema (Deuteronomy 6:4-9) commands the Israelites to love the Lord their God with h...

Know thyself — but don’t tell anyone.

A person wrapped up in himself makes a small package.

Perhaps the greatest irony in the life of continual comparison is that while it involves so much attention to the attributes and gifts of other people, it’s actually quite self-focused. From that hype...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

Self-hatred and self-love are equally self-centered.

Lord God, You have created us all in Your image and have loved your creation with an everlasting and costly love. But all too often we are blind and fail to see Your image in others. We exclude those ...

“The assumption that everyone else is like you. That you are the world. The disease of consumer capitalism. The complacent solipsism.”

Almighty God, throughout our days you seek us, yet we dismiss your presence. You stand ready to reveal yourself to us, yet we are distracted by our self-interests. Forgive our selfishness. Holy Spirit...

Almighty God, during this tumultuous time, we see so clearly our frailty and powerlessness. Any illusions of strength and grandeur have been stripped away. We are utterly dependent upon you. Even with...

Lord God, You have called us to yourself and made us into a people. We belong to you, and we belong to one another. But in our self-focused lives, we have forgotten that. We have lived for ourselves. ...

We believe the world was made by a God who is a community of persons who have loved each other for all eternity. You were made for mutually self-giving, other directed love. Self-centeredness destroys...

Our hearts love to manufacture glory for themselves.

Pride is a by-product of insecurity. And the more insecure a person is, the more monuments they need to build. There is a fine line between 'Thy kingdom come' and 'my kingdom come.' If...

If Jesus sets the divine standard for morality, I could now have an unwavering foundation for my choices and decisions, rather than basing them on the ever-shifting sands of expediency and self-center...

Lord, we confess that we are tempted to be relevant, to be popular, and to be powerful. In our pride, we seek to be recognized as great. Humble us and remind us that we are your beloved children, who ...

We are molding Jesus into our image. He's beginning to look a lot like us because, after all, that is who we are most comfortable with. The danger now is when we gather in our church buildings to ...

"There are who never learn to see anything except in its relation to themselves, nor that relation except as fancied by themselves; and, this being a withering habit of mind, they keep growing dr...

God of the Impossible – Father, Son and Holy Spirit: There’s nothing too hard for you to do, Nothing too complex for You to understand, No place we go that You’re not there, No sin too heinous tha...

Most conversations are simply monologues delivered in the presence of a witness.

To me, growing into spiritual maturity is becoming less self-conscious and more God-conscious.

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? The Books of the Psalms and David The Book of Psalms is divided into five books, like the five books of the Torah. While it is not obvi...

Ancient Lens What can we learn from the historical context? Small Town Boys The towns in this area were small and close together, but they were not particularly large.  As such, even a few thousa...

We may find it hard to believe Jeremiah’s words that the heart is “deceitful above all things.” We would rather look outward and think, Yes, others may be quite foolish and misguided. But I have a ...