The Bondage to Self

To hold onto something with a desperate grip is not the way to die. Death is a painful process, and restoratives offered to the dying wretch bound to his wheel only prolong his agony. There are times when the thing to do is simply to die. I am thinking, of course, of dying to the self. We clutch so tenaciously to our rights, hopes, ambitions, something to which God has perhaps said a plain no. If would-be comforters offer us consolation and sympathy, if they assist us to strengthen our grasp when it should be loosened, they do not love us as God loves us. The way into life is death, and if we refuse it we are refusing Him who showed us that way and no other. The love which is strong as death is not only willing to save the beloved, it is willing to seem, if necessary, pitiless, insensitive, unloving, if that is what will help the beloved to die--that is, to be released from the bondage of self, which is death, and thus enter the gateway of life.   ~Elisabeth Elliot, “A Lamp For My Feet”

Self righteousness is the big lie of Satan. The truth is you are saved by Christ; the lie is you are saved by anything other than Christ. That certain rules, doing specific routines, belonging to a particular system, being good enough to outweigh your shortcomings--there’s a myriad of possible systems to counter the one truth, and they are all part of Satan’s big lie. If Satan can get someone into a system that says they are righteous, it’s very hard to extract the from it. One reason is that the self-righteous are very proud. ~John MacArthur, Truth Endures, The Simple Gospel