The Stubbornness of Self

When our self, our ego, is slighted, when it is bruised it rises up in "self"-defense...

How hard it is for self to die...

How destructive and ugly is our sin...

Here's our condition, as expressed by A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God:

"God formed us for His pleasure, and so formed us that we, as
well as He, can, in divine communion, enjoy the sweet and mysterious mingling of
kindred personalities.

"[But], we have broken with God. We have ceased to obey Him or
love Him, and in guilt and fear have fled as far as possible from His
presence...

"So the life of man upon the earth is a life away from the
Presence, wrenched loose from that "blissful center" which is our right and
proper dwelling place, our first estate which we kept not, the loss of which is
the cause of our unceasing restlessness."

A sad state of being... One which I can identify with all too readily. : (

Yet despite this, our stubborn self refuses to die...

But Jesus Christ overcame the power of death and sin. How? By dying a violent death.

So we too must follow in our Lord's footsteps, even to this death, if we are to live in freedom.

Tozer writes,

"The ancient curse will not go out painlessly; the tough old miser within us
will not lie down and die in obedience to our command. He must be torn out of
our heart like a plant from the soil; he must be extracted in agony and blood
like a tooth from the jaw. He must be expelled from our soul by violence, as
Christ expelled the money changers from the temple. And we shall need to steel
ourselves against his piteous begging, and to recognize it as springing out of
self-pity, one of the most reprehensible sins of the human heart. "

Yikes! Like that?!

Yeah...

But if we would be so bold as to allow the Lord to do this, we will begin to taste divine life; sweet freedom!

It's what Tozer describes as "The Blessedness of Possessing Nothing."