“For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus.”
(Phil 2:21, NKJV)
A few years ago the leadership of a neighboring church asked me to mediate in a matter on which the parties involved held radically different views. I was familiar with the individuals in each group – all born again, Spirit-filled men who were truly seeking the will of God. Both groups were very, very sure that they were right, and could not understand why the other group was not willing to see and accept their argument. Consequently they had decided to call in someone from the outside to decide on the matter.
I called a meeting where both parties stated their case. Both did so with conviction, their arguments founded on Scripture. From a personal perspective I could not play Solomon and cast a judgment over the matter – the arguments of both were valid and pretty foolproof. I prayed and asked the Holy Spirit for a word of wisdom, and He gave me Phil 2:21 – “For all seek their own, not the things which are of Christ Jesus.”
When I called the brothers together and read them the word I had received, they immediately became quiet and convicted, asking one another for forgiveness. Both groups were wrong, although they were right. That day they learnt that God cannot be convinced by correct dogma, but that the right attitude of heart is what He really counts as valuable. We often make the mistake of seeing our understanding or knowledge of something as the norm, while God often overrules his own law because His mindset is much wider than we often want to allow Him to have. (Die story of the hungry David and his eating of the show breads in 1 Sam 21, to which Jesus also refers in Matt 12, is a wonderful example of this.) The Scripture above urges us to always be on the lookout not necessarily for what we see as the spiritually-correct way of going about things, but rather for that which manifests God’s heart. (A good example here is the woman with the alabaster flask who came to anoint Jesus with very expensive and precious oil, while the disciples felt that she should rather sell it and give the money to the poor. Read the story in Matt 26:6-13.)
The bottom line is that we often hold onto a truth, revelation or tradition for dear life, thinking God has sanctioned it, but in reality it does not reflect His heart. The worst part of this state is that we can remain walking in (religious) self-righteousness thus finally ending up completely outside of the will of God.
Self-willedness is the religious fruit of a heart that is so far from God and so hardened that the soft voice of God is pressed away by religiosity. The scariest part of it is that the person is unaware of the fact that he is walking in sin and deception. As a matter of fact, 1 Sam 15:22 suggests that self-willedness is like the sin of idolatry and rebellion and is called witchcraft. Ps 51:17 spells it out – “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart” – these are the sacrifices that He will accept, not the “correct” spiritual assumptions we make.
And then, this terrifying truth of Prov 21:2 – “Every way of a man is right in his own eyes, but the LORD weighs the hearts.”
- Sela: Ask the Holy Spirit to illuminate any deeply nestled self-willedness.
- Read: Jos 16 Est 9; Isa 32
- Memorise: Isa 32:15
- For a deeper understanding: Read chapter 5 of Brennan Manning’s book The wisdom of accepted tenderness.
