Dead? or Alive?

This week at my church we have revival meetings. The first night the evangelist got up to the pulpit and says, "It is not uncommon to hear people say that their home church is dead." The evangelist went on to say that he doesn't believe this is the problem. He believes are churches are too alive! (we all stare at him a little bit confused) He goes on to explain that our churches are not dead enough. We need to be more dead to ourselves and alive to the work of the Lord. We are too alive to our own selfish desires and needs. This has been something that has been on my mind a lot over the last few months.

Right before I went back to school in the Fall one of my pastors mentioned in his message that he used to be very shy. He was shy until he stopped focusing on himself. I thought about this and realized that he was right. I can walk through a hallway at school where there are a 100 people I don't know and if I am not thinking about me and how they will view me than I am really not as shy as I was. Is this always easy? Nope. Am I never shy anymore? I am still shy, but less than I used to be and it all has to do with how important I think I am.

See who are we really? What  have we really done? Sure, we might do nice things for people sometimes. We might take our grandma to her doctor appointments or wash the dishes for our mother or we might even go as far as drive out of our way to pick up someone who can't drive yet. But really, what have we done? Have we went through pain and torture to save someone else? Have we took on the whole world's sins when we have never even sinned ourselves? Have we died for someone else? Have we created a world? When we compare what we have done to what God has done how big are we? Who are we really?

When we compare what we have done to what God has done we can't help but think of ourselves as very small and not that important. When we compare what we have done to what God has done we cant help but think that maybe us serving God rather than serving ourselves is maybe not such a crazy idea. We learned in Sunday school that God is first, Yourself is last and Others come in between but do we put that to action?When a situation comes up what is the first factor we consider? Do we consider how this would please God and help my friend out? Or do we think man that would really put me behind in my homework this week?

I don't know about you all but I do know I have a lot to learn in this area. I would like to think that eventually I can get to a place where I know longer have to struggle to not think about me first but to always think of God and others. Is it possible?

The popular worship song, " Who Am I" is a good overview of my thoughts here. If anyone wants to join me in my pursuits to being more dead to self and alive to God please do!