TEACH ME O LORD, WHAT YOU WANT ME TO DO, AND I WILL OBEY YOU FAITHFULLY, PSALM 87:11a

I, Me, and Myself


‘I’, It is good to start this Morning Devotion blog within ourselves, the part of us we call it ‘I’, me or myself. I or ego is many times self centred entity that if we do not manage or tame it, it will rebel against us by way of holding our whole body captive to submit to its desires. The self or I is unknown power that rebels against the wishes of spirit of the body. The I, Me or Myself does contradictory things the mind and spirit wish not to do. Paul describes graphically in Romans that “ the good things I like to do , I do not do, but I always do things I do not want to do. It is not me, but somebody inside me that does all those things.” Paul is saying that though he does not like to do those things abominable, he does it all the time. His mind and spirit know that those things are bad and he should not do them. Even though, knowing very well, they are bad, he keeps doing them. So he blames someone, somebody other than himself inside him does those things. He separates I, me and myself from someone else inside him.

Who is this someone else? Paul refers to this someone else as old Adam( Romans 5). It is old “I, me and myself” that lives in us and controls us to do things contrary to our spirit’s desires to produce good fruits of our faith and new life in Christ. When Paul refers to himself as ‘I’ do not do the things I want to do, he is not referring to the “old Adam” I , me and myself, but referring to the new Adam- Christ who lives him and enables him to do things that glorify God. However, the old Adam who continues to be part of our sinful self, rebels against the Spirit of God who dwells in us. The Old Adam causes us to do things contrary to the Spirit. Paul rightly said, our Body is the Temple of Lord because the Spirit lives in us. On the same token, the Holy Spirit constantly overpowers the work of the Old Adam- ‘I, Me, and Myself’ and takes full control of our body. One of its functions is to convict the old Adam to see himself as doings contrary to the desires of the spirit- which we like to call it sin. When Paul realises a power inside him that causes him to do something contrary other than his spirit and mind convict him to do, he correctly points to someone else- this someone else is no other than Old Adam- sinful self, ‘I, Me, and Myself.

What we need to learn from this is that, we must alert like Paul by letting the Holy Spirit help us to see this power. Unless we differentiate our new life in Christ ‘I’ Paul refers to, and the Old Adam, ‘I, Me and Myself’ who rules us over, we will be ‘devil’s workshop’s so to speak and not God’s temple.

It is this desire, “I” “Me and Myself” that brought first man and woman down. When Satan tempted Eve by telling her that when you eat of the fruit, you will be like God, know what is good and what is bad. She told herself, how wonderful is it to be wise? She told herself, ‘I’ want to be like God. How wonderful it is for ‘me’ to be like God? ‘I’ want to know ‘myself’ what is good and what is bad. The self centred ego that lured the woman to now become independent of God and become autonomous, ruling her own life, and making decision of her own and disobedient to be submissive to God s rule.

Paul explains this same human nature of our primeval parent passed down to us, even to Paul who experience’s this inner struggle between the Old Adam and New Adam this way in Romans 5:12 ‘Sin came into this world through one man and sin brought death with it. As a result, death spread to the whole human race because everyone has sinned.’ The very same nature of ‘I’ want to be like God is spread to us, the off springs of the first parents.

Paul explains the cure or way out. His explanation is so simple and yet powerful. Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection is the power for our freedom and way out of this struggle. He uses the analogy of our baptism as an enactment of Christ’s death and resurrection. Our baptism is in fact our participation in Christ’s salvific act of death and resurrection that it has powerful effect in our daily lives. We die with Christ in our baptism, therefore our sin were buried with him in his death and again as Christ defeated the powers of Satan, death and sin by raising up from the death, we too have the power of our baptism to raise to the newness of life in Christ. We are new people, new beings and he says in 1 Corinthians, “it longer I who lives, but Christ lives me.”

How is the relevant to us now as we read this devotion? Martin Luther explains Romans 6 this way in his Catechism: At the close of every day, you make a sign of the cross, thinking of your baptism. In your baptism you died with Christ thus buried your sins. Confess all your sins(both sin of commission and omission) that you commit during the day. Go to sleep in peace believing that Christ washed your sins away, At the dawn of the new day when you wake up, sit on your bed, make a sign of cross to remind you that in your baptism you did not only die with your sin, but rose from the grave to new resurrected life in Christ. Pray that you are a new being, new person in Christ. Pray that God through the power of the Holy Spirit will protect and guide you as you live your new life. Go out to the world, a new person in new life in Christ and work to proclaim the new life or Christ in your work and in your relationships with people around you.

When, like Paul, if the ‘someone else’ inside you makes you to do things the spirit and your mind do not want to you to do, then do the same in the evening. Baptism is a one off act, but living out our baptism is a daily Christian activity or exercise. This exercise will suppress the Old self, Adam, ‘I, Me and Myself’ from taking control of our lives. The key to suppressing all other evil practices and desires and deeds are only possible if we suppress the self “I”. Christ did that even to the cross.

May God give you heart to let God teach you His word. Amen.