What is behind what I have been saying?    How I am the center  of my universe…?   I call it the – I-Me-My-Mine-Syndrome… it is built in… part of my original  equipment…  Philip the Great  is so much better than the rest of  the human race….

I really really knew it was true  when I became a professional  full-time minister … I mean I had now achieved  the greatest goal… the highest good  in Christendom… I was one of those very special  people… ordained to live from  the gospel… I was a paid preacher…I could now leave  all that serving  stuff to the others… to the lesser ones…. and give myself completely to the work  of the ministry…. I could now “devote myself to prayer, and to the ministry of the word”…

I missed everything  Jesus had said… “don’t think more highly of yourself than you ought to think”…. “the first shall be last” …. “become the servant of all”…. “unless a seed goes into the ground and dies”…. “save your life and you’ll lose it”….

Somebody actually got it straight  when they said:     “we conquer by yielding, we receive by giving, we overcome by being defeated, and we live by dying. There is no other way except the way of the Cross.  It is the one and only principle of Christian conduct.”

Jesus said it this way:  “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Obviously something needed to happen to change all this in philip…  thankfully it did and it continues to happen… it is called dying daily…

🙂