RE: Open Letter - Dear Saints in the Lord's Recovery - Joann Casteel

[Jo S]

Originally Posted by aron

I was using the context of the disciples arguing about which was greatest. That, to me, is the Kingdom of Self. The fallen human disposition to make everything about Me, Me and Me.

I was like that, for a long time, both through the LC and beyond, and maybe from this project my own foibles on others, which distorts my ability to see what scripture actually says.

That's what I assumed but at the same time needing God, needing salvation, needing His healing, needing Godly Christian fellowship for one's self, are things we should selfishly pursue. It's only the trivial things like what we wear or what we eat that shouldn't concerned us so much.

You remind me of an old friend of mine. He wasn't a Christian but was one of the most kind and giving people you could ever meet. I admired, and often times envied, this part of his character growing up. It wasn't until I came to know Christ and his love that I came to realize my friend's "love" for other's was in reality selfishness cloaked in selflessness. What I mean is that for him, offering and often times forcing his help on others was a type of self-therapy. The praises he received from others provided him with the validation he needed to maintain his wellbeing but there was a darker side to all of it. The truth was that his giving was first and foremost always about himself. He found that the best solution for his low self-esteem issues was doing things for other people. It was a reciprocal type of love.

This may all sound harsh but it's the truth. I don't fault my friend for using his deeds in helping others as a crutch for himself but I no longer admire this type of selflessness. I still, however, admire and appreciate his willingness to help others. From this example, I now understand that it's only from the outflow of God's genuine love in us that can truly change other's lives and not from the outflow of the self-love and self-righteousness in us.

1 Corinthians 13 :

If I speak in the tongues[a] of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Originally Posted by aron

When you lose the "me first" attitude, which the soul seems to gravitate to, then you can find peace, joy, fellowship, love. The LC was, in retrospect, one person's unmet needs (WL) writ large across the assembly. If we fed his ego, we felt better for a time. We were recruited to be co-conspirators, co-dependents as it were. His "me-first" abetted my "me-first" for a time. Then the wine ran out...

It's our bondage to sin that gravitates us toward the "me first" attitude. Sin is darkness and darkness is a bottomless void with a voracious and insatiable appetite. Ourselves or our souls are subject to this quality of sin before we come to salvation. We can't help it and by no effort of our own can we change that. If we try by our own strength it'll only leads to the type of altruism that I mentioned above.