INTRODUCTION

While just putting the finishing touches to a new article, entitled “Verifying One’s Calling and Election: 14 Signs of Spiritual Salvation in the Disciple of Christ” (available very soon), I felt the need to elaborate much more than I had space for in the article on the thirteenth sign of salvation, which is “The Willing Renunciation of Self”. This is based on Jesus’s saying, “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). Willingly denying oneself (because one sees through that ‘self’) is a mighty powerful sign of spiritual salvation. Essentially, one cannot “come after Christ” (i.e. follow Him, be His disciple) if one does not practise the uniquely Christian art of what I call “saying goodbye” to oneself (or one’s ‘self’). It is this ‘goodbying’ of the self which is our main subject here.

So in this little paper, I want to ask three all-important questions. 1) What does saying “goodbye to your ‘self’” mean? 2) What are the practical ways to say “goodbye” to one’s self? 3) What is the outcome of saying “goodbye” to one’s self?

So, let’s dive into this…

I. WHAT DOES “SAYING GOODBYE” TO YOUR SELF MEAN?

Firstly, I should say that saying goodbye to your self does not mean that there will be no ego whatsoever. One would cease to exist if that occurred! For, as a result of the Fall, we are individuated bits of consciousness experiencing ourselves as beings separated from God and we have to work within that limitation (a limitation which is mitigated when one is united with Christ). One does actually need some healthy aspects of ego purely in order to survive in this world. I am thinking here of the general will to live to the full the life one has been given, which will mean doing everything towards survival, insofar as it is possible and in as much of an unforced and unsinful manner as is possible.

So, saying goodbye to one’s self — an action which only becomes possible after coming to Christ — simply means that the baser aspects of the ego no longer sit on the throne of your life like some autocratic king who always has to have his own way (and off with your head if he doesn’t!). Saying goodbye to your ‘self’ means that your ego will no longer strive to push itself forward at every opportunity but instead is consistently prepared to give way in order to achieve the greatest good for all and everything. In other words, someone who has said goodbye to self knows how to stand back. Standing back comes naturally to such a person.

A ‘Goodbyed’ Self Makes a Great Leader

However, a “goodbyed” self will still also accept coming forward for leadership if it is requested by others to do so. For the ‘goodbyed’ ego actually makes the perfect leader because the common snares of the ego and all the associated corruption will not undermine the act of leadership, which must always be subtle, empathetic, magnanimous, and ultimately will be seeking to make itself redundant in many respects through education and delegation.

A ‘Goodbyed’ Self is a Completely Rewired Self

And here is the essence: The one who has bid the self ‘goodbye’ is no longer hardwired to seek only his or her own fulfilment at all costs. I believe that in the one who has committedly said goodbye to self — who has denied the self, just as Christ asserted — the very DNA will be changed so that a complete “rewiring” of the system has taken place. For with the fallen nature one has been hardwired to be a lusting, thrusting, hustling, acquisitive, entirely self-centred, conditioned creature; whereas, after one has committed to saying goodbye to one’s self as part of the sanctified process of becoming “a new creation” in Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17), a completely new “wiring system” begins to be laid down. This is what the true Ekklesia consists of: Radically rewired humans who have no desire to engage in the baser instincts of the ego. They have left behind envy, covetousness, jealousy, competitiveness, unrighteous anger, blustering, thieving, lying, violence, sexual immorality, idolatry, sorcery, divisive behaviour, debauchery, hatred, conniving, plotting, and manipulating, and are now devoted to a different kind of life altogether.

So now I hear you say, “I have given my life to Christ. But how can I say goodbye to my ‘self’? What can I practically do to achieve that?” Well, here are a few thoughts on that…

II. WHAT ARE THE PRACTICAL WAYS TO “SAY GOODBYE TO ONE’S SELF”?

So how do we say goodbye to ourselves? Or, if I may put it this way, how can we prepare the ground of our lives so that a “goodbyed” self logically becomes utterly inevitable? Genuine disciples of Christ cannot feel comfortable acting through a false self, the old self, which is subject to senseless whims and conditioned triggers. So they will do whatever work is necessary to goodbye to the self. But to enable this to happen more easily, here are some practical ways to say goodbye to the troublemaking aspects of the self:

1) See Right Through Your Self

The first practical way to say goodbye to your self is to commit to seeing through yourself completely. Get into the habit of catching yourself out in the way you act, react, behave, comport yourself and so on. Watch yourself out of the corner of your eye, as it were. If you are deadly serious, you will become increasingly skilled at doing this. It cannot be stressed enough that it is impossible to say goodbye to one’s self without the development and implementation of an acute self-awareness. This is not identical to self-analysis, which is more of a hindsight intellectual activity. It is more about subtly but scintillatingly observing oneself in real time in an objective, detached and ego-undermining manner — a process that takes place ‘on-the-fly’, every microsecond that we go about our business. It means calmly and quietly observing oneself objectively as one goes about one’s daily life interacting, thinking and being. This is not about self-obsession but about objective self-revelation in order to see just where the bottlenecks are in our lives so that the Holy Spirit can show us how to deal with them.

What one observes is not for broadcasting to others but is strictly in order to ‘catch oneself out’ and gain vital knowledge about ourselves and the moronic and foolish ways that we behave so that we can change in a meaningful manner. It’s as if you are discovering whatever it is about you which lies behind the ‘you’ that you think you are and then observing your ‘self’ through that purer filter. It is as if we are discovering whatever it is about ourselves which lies behind the ‘me’ that we imagine who we are and then observing ourselves through that purer filter. We are not who we think we are and once we embark on the pathway towards self-awareness we will start to have glimpses of who we really are, the real self, the kernel of our being which lies behind all the dross and which also should astonish us. For we develop all manner of false selves to suit different situations.

As I have observed, a large majority of Christians are notoriously bad at this kind of self-awareness. This is why there are so many easily-ruffled, easily-offended, easily angered, nasty and even vitriolic, conniving and treacherous folks in Christian churches who will do everything they can to undermine truthtellers in those churches. It is a huge problem, probably due to so many never having been truly born again (“born from above”). They think that all they have to do is pray the prayer and “leave it to the Lord” to sort them out. But that is a fatal mistake of the widespread pietism. We have work to do. It is part of our progressive sanctification process to do that work. We are not robots manipulated by some invisible presence.

Thus, we need to get in the habit of ‘catching ourselves out’ in the way that we act, react, behave, comport ourselves and so on. If we watch ourselves out of the corner of our eye, as it were, we will become increasingly skilled at observing our actions, thoughts, and reactions.

Self-awareness means observing and understanding the reasons behind all our words, actions, and thoughts. Does it not intrigue you to know why you should speak, think, and behave as you do? How much of that is authentically ‘you’ rather than some learned behaviour which has become an unnecessary and superfluous part of yourself — a part of the old self which is anomalously present?

That is the essence. For our thoughts, words and actions can have only two sources: Either a) our fallen nature along with our baggage that comes from the past, plus the false ‘self’ that we’ve fed over time (the sinful self of moral failure) or b) a purified heart which spreads throughout one’s whole being. This process of undermining our false ‘selves’ through the aperture of self-awareness will inevitably lead to wonderful epiphanies (all of which arise out of the inevitable and necessary pain of ‘death to self’). The more one practises it, the more one will find increasingly that one’s normal repertoire of ignorant stupidity, insensitivity, and lack of empathy is increasingly eradicated and consigned to the dustbin of history.

Another thing: We will also be chatterboxes far less than we were, realising how many of our words are superficial, empty, and wasted, as irrelevant to the tide of life as flotsam washed up on a deserted beach. When that realisation comes, we will no longer speak because we have to say something but because we have something to say.

In the meantime, we do not have to be passive observers of the world’s charade. A global network of careful education, revelation, forthtelling prophecy and in-depth understanding comes through those who have seen beyond their tattered egos and dysfunctional selves, which they are in the process of shedding like the skin of a snake. This is the inner work of the true Ekklesia — the body of Christ, the true Church. For among that body of people, there should be no place for the manipulation, worldliness (adherence to the satanic world-system), nastiness, plotting, conniving, cultishness, sectarianism, rigidity, narrow-mindedness, tyranny, heavy-shepherding, and outright false teaching, all of which one even (astonishingly) finds in so many gatherings of those who profess to be “Christians” today.

The Conundrum of the Corrupt ‘Christian’ Threw me for Years

For over the years, I have seen all these elements in many churches in people who presented their ‘selves’ publicly as ‘godly’ men and women. Plus, I have counselled many over the last thirty years and more — both pastors and members of flocks — who have been at the receiving end of the pastoral subterfuge of these impostors. For years, it was a real stumbling-block for me to understand why all that should persistently exist for so long after they had allegedly been ‘born again’. The only way that I could reconcile it was to realise that there was no ‘denial of self’ taking place in them and no ‘sloughing off’ of all the accumulated dross of their acquired false selves. They just plainly hadn’t even bothered — just like they don’t bother to study in-depth either, which is all a consequence of their pietism, imagining that “God will do it all” for them without them ever having to raise a finger. One is forced to wonder if any regeneration had taken place at all in such people. This accounted for why, whenever I have needed to deal with them, it was like trying to keep a grip on a bar of soap in the bath! One had no idea which ‘self’ one was dealing with — the smarmy ‘Christian’ self which they tried to project to the world (and which most people believed was true), or the manipulative, degenerate self which they used towards those who had seen through their public persona. Having left behind a life of nonsense and pledged myself to Christ, I was completely thrown by all this for years and wondered how it could possibly be.

This is why the process that I am describing is a vital part of sanctification. For without it, one becomes a quietly destructive force among the people of God who is cut off from himself or herself, unable to perceive what one has become. It is also why I have longed to create a local gathering of disciples, a real ekklesia, where people are encouraged to have gracious and loving hearts alongside healthy teaching from the Sacred Texts. From my long-time mailbag, I can see that many are crying out for just such a gathering.

The Need for Self-Discipline is a Vital Part of Discipleship to Christ

Eventually, I came to realise that I had to experience these secretly disruptive people and their poison first-hand — both as a congregation member and as a pastor — in order to believe that it really happens and also to understand it and why it should happen. This is why I have been able to counsel others who have been on the receiving end of such outright evil. Some of the victims of this treatment — both pastors and congregation members — were almost destroyed by it, emotionally and spiritually. This has convinced me that this kind of destructive force posing as a ‘Christian’ is one of Satan’s most fiendishly clever strategies to undermine the good work of the Ekklesia. Deception and darkness easily invades the minds of those who are spiritually, emotionally, and psychologically undisciplined and who are dishonest with themselves. Thus, the need for self-discipline is a vital part of discipleship to Christ. This is why self-awareness is a mighty way of preventing oneself from being a source of conflict in the Ekklesia and in the wider world.

If we who are disciples of Christ do what we can to ensure the development of our self-awareness, personal growth, spiritual depth, empathy, insight, intuition and understanding — which is part of sanctification — while attracting and encouraging others to hurl themselves onto a similar pathway, dedicating themselves to a lifetime as disciples of Christ (the fruit of both our evangelism and our pastoral diligence), then our work will be done.

So, the first practical way to say goodbye to the troublemaking aspects of the self is to see right through yourself. The second practical way to say goodbye to your self is this:

2) Don’t Take Your ‘Self’ so Seriously!

We tend to be so wrapped up in our own little lives and worlds that we take ourselves far too seriously. We make such a drama out of everything. We feel slighted when our egos aren’t being stroked or massaged. We become affronted if people don’t pay too much attention to us. We feel a failure if we get a low mark in an exercise instead of dedicating ourselves to try harder. We feel peeved if people won’t behave as we want them to. We get ‘touchy’ if someone looks at us the wrong way. We get defensive and prickly if we sense someone is critical of us. We become exasperated if we don’t get our own way. We become crestfallen if we don’t get enough “likes” on Facebook on a picture of our lunches or our ‘selfies’. We get resentful if we perceive ourselves to have been “disrespected”. We feel indignant if the boss or our partner doesn’t compliment us constantly. We are offended if people make fun of us or insult us. We feel piqued if someone makes an uncomplimentary remark about our hairstyle or clothing. We go off in a huff or ‘go off the deep end’ at the least little thing. We let people and situations get to us in an entirely ludicrous manner. What a drama it all is! That is us taking ourselves far too seriously. Hey! Lighten up! Big-time!

The rewards of self-awareness and seeing through our selves (and thereby saying goodbye to our ‘selves’) begin when we are able to chuckle, or even outright guffaw, at the silliness of so many of our actions, sentiments and thinking processes. If we look at them objectively without the investment of a puffed-up ego, we will discover that most of our conditioned reflexes are actually side-splittingly hilarious! It must surely bemuse the angels to watch us blundering around in our egocentric madness. Well, it’s about time we joined in the fun! Doing so will bring immense spiritual rewards. Because when we stop taking our selves so seriously and start laughing at our stupid behaviour and thoughts — rejecting the dross and transforming what remains — we will naturally begin to say goodbye to our ‘selves’.

The Chimera of Our ‘Selves’

Please bear in mind that the self which you are seeing through and laughing at, is not the true essence of you which lies behind the you who you think that you are. We have tailored various ‘selves’, or parts of oneself, for different situations — often without realising it. It is as if there is a pandemic of Multiple Personality Disorder! Many fail to maintain their own individual character in such situations and, instead of bringing something of their uniqueness to them, end up quashing themselves and kowtowing to the group identity. However, such conformity is contrary to authenticity and genuine selfhood.

The selves that we develop in those environments each have a complete set of traits, desires, fears, and actions associated with them. They will even have their own adapted way of talking (e.g. accent, timbre, inflexion, intonation, etc.), manner of dressing, banter, comportment and so on. Often, the characteristics of those personas are learned behaviour — either imprinted in us from significant people in our lives (e.g. parents, relatives, lovers, close friends, colleagues, teachers, peer groups, etc.) or are the result of our cultural conditioning (e.g. nationality, regional affiliations and influences, dialect, accent, parental inculcation, religion, social class, etc.).

[NB: I am not saying here that one should change one’s accent or dialect. Those are a rich part of life and extremely interesting in their origin. But very often one’s accent can dictate more than merely the way we speak, as if we are taking on a whole mantle of local characteristics and attitude, such as gruffness, or moaning, or being critical, or being snobby. I’d better leave it there and not reveal to which dialect I think each of those characteristics corresponds before someone gets offended!].

The Patchwork Quilt of Conditioned Craziness

In this way, a variety of different personas can develop in tandem in the same individual. Often those personas can be conflicting. However, they are intrinsically false, ersatz — mere strategies we devise so as to cope and interact with specific situations: Creations of convenience, add-ons, ornaments, accoutrements, costumes we can don or remove at the drop of a hat — mostly without even realising it. In this way we have become a patchwork quilt of conditioned craziness.

Then there is the self that we think of as ourselves — the ‘me’ that is in our minds when we think of who we are. That is usually the self with which we identify. If we examine it honestly, we will see that in our minds that ‘self’ mainly consists of nothing more than the sum total of all our thoughts, experiences, education, work, achievements, accomplishments, and our history, often even coupled with an identification with our primary possessions and acquisitions (e.g. house, car, etc.), relations (especially partner/spouse/children) and immediate sphere. Again, this is not really our true self but is an acquired one — a mere image of ourselves. All of it is just thoughts, ideas, memories, and accolades. That particular will-o-the-wisp ‘self’ is a patchwork quilt of accumulated memories and it surely will not exist in the same way in which it does now after we have left this world.

As long as we remain stuck in the false-self viewpoint and way of life, we are all mainly figments of our own imagination! On one level, one can find this thought-provokingly amusing; but on another level it is something deadly serious and about which we need to ponder very carefully. To do such pondering is in itself a highly efficient way of undermining this undergirding false nature and thus being able to step into a more authentic realm of existence.

So, all the personas in which we dress ourselves for work or play, for home or friends — together with the one that we equate with our thoughts and experiences — plus our nationally, regionally, religiously or culturally conditioned selves, constitute the overall false ‘self’, a deftly adaptational impostor, which we need to turn upside-down if we are to arrive at the marrow of life and living.

The Need to Deny Our False Sel(f)ves

Casting off that ‘false self’ or ‘false selves’ is thus the necessary beginning of dis-illusionment — rightly relinquishing ourselves of the mountain of illusions, ideas, hurts, concepts and engrams (memory traces) which we have built up in our minds over the years and which we have falsely come to see as the ‘me’ which wallows in its own over-inflated importance. I believe that this is part of the work of the disciple of Christ in relation to his or her sanctification process. In a way, this is the very essence of spirituality: A kind of initiation into one’s own ‘death’… before we physically die! Death to self — the false self — the stripping-down of the superfluity of the ego. For it is plainly a part of what Christ referred to as ‘denying ourselves’, which He said is a condition for true discipleship. “If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). The force of the Greek in the word translated as “deny” means to strongly reject, disown, or repudiate that self. How many of those calling themselves “Christians” really do that? This is a serious question with extreme ramifications for the body of Christ in relation to the visible church.

To deny oneself is not merely about resisting eating some ‘goodies’ during Lent, or taking a vow of poverty and wearing a goatskin loincloth in the wilderness, or living on a platform up a pole for thirty-seven years (as did Simon the Stylite). To ‘deny oneself’ means consciously shedding the baloney which has conceited us into what we imagine ourselves to be — what Paul referred to as “casting off the old self” and “putting on the new” (Colossians 3:9-10). We then leave behind the ‘worldlings’ that we were before the repenting process of metanoia and begin anew. It has to be anew! This means cutting out anything egocentric which stands in the way of ‘us and God’ and also in the way of ‘us and them’: Essentially, becoming a whole new creation. Because “if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away. Behold, the new has come into being!” (2 Corinthians 5:17).

There is a major way in which we do absolutely become that ‘new creation’ from the moment one’s discipleship to Christ begins for real — from the very instant that one’s process of metanoia transformation begins. But there still remains some of the dross that we have taken onto and into our ‘selves’ which needs to be sloughed off. Some of that will go immediately. Some will go quite quickly due to the presence of the Spirit and our new-found perception and awareness. But some will be more stubborn. Plus there is a whole new learning process which will predetermine our reactions to prospective inappropriate mantles presenting themselves to us to take on board. We will make mistakes and we will learn from those mistakes — a process which never ends this side of our transition through physical death.

Overall, one should not generally need a whole lot of effort in this cleansing process because it is then one’s pleasure to strip oneself down to the essence of who one is, freed from the encumbrance of the false elements of self which have been developed over years of egocentricity. For in the transformed soul, that wholly new being has already come to pass. But the more ‘sticky’ elements will need some work. All this is part of the process of sanctification — our inner work as the saints of God. When will we start to do it rather than continue being petty-minded gossips or over-zealous heresy-spotters?

Here is the stark reality. Part of following the spiritual path is like setting out on a vast journey over hugely challenging and unexplored terrain in which the goal is the exposure and destruction of the false, acquisitive selves and masks and destructive behaviours which we have developed during our lives and discovering the kernel and essence which is being renewed daily in love and sanctification. For only then will we dissolve the remnants of the old self which are embedded, engrammed, in us.

If you have said goodbye to that false self or selves, then there is nothing that is a part of you which could ever be offended, upset or enraged. The self which is so prickly and easily offended is merely a conditioned set of ego-reflexes based on historical experiences (no doubt including some trauma) and accumulated perceived discourtesies. If we allow these to build up, then we start to take ourselves too seriously and those maladjusted circumstances and perceptions take root in us and become who we think we are. When we practise the art of not taking ourselves so seriously, we undermine these conditioned reflexes, and they begin to dissolve as surely as night follows day.

So, the second practical way to say goodbye to the troublemaking aspects of the self is to avoid taking your ‘self’ so seriously. The third practical way to say goodbye to your self is this:

3) “Hang Loose” to People and Things

Another important way of saying goodbye to your self is to avoid being unhealthily attached to people and things. You will still love people and still kind of “own” things (in the sense that they are temporarily passing through your hands); but you will not be needily related to them.

One can still passionately love a person and be wonderfully involved with and committed to him or her yet, somehow, still hang loose — in the sense of not being utterly dependent on them. So many people think that their entire world will collapse without a certain someone in their lives. When one has said goodbye to one’s self, one may wistfully miss a person’s presence, but one will not be devastated by their absence. The clingy, conditioned ego will have been loosened — a process which deepens exponentially the more one becomes aware of unhealthy attachments.

Moreover, when two people are together who have both said goodbye to themselves, the most exciting relationship can ensue. If only one of them has done so then any meaningful relationship will be impossible. But two together is a magic combination as the adventure is shared and they will be like mirrors reflecting each other in a fertile sea of empathy, support, fidelity, wonder and mutual adherence.

Similarly, with one’s material objects, one will not be overwhelmed by their loss. Through hanging loose, you will know what is your true relationship to material assets and this will ensure that you will not be devastated by their loss. Even if someone drives into that brand new Aston Martin which is parked outside your house, you will smile to yourself knowingly and say “Yep, figures”. For if we take pride in material assets and wealth and attach ourselves to them while professing to be spiritual and on the pathway of being self-goodbyed, there are lessons needing to be learned and God has unstoppable ways of teaching them to us. Oh yes!

So above are three major ways that we can begin to undermine our egos and say goodbye to our ‘selves’. Here are a couple of extra thoughts to close this section.

First, one doesn’t one day stand up and say in a dramatic flourish: “Goodbye, false self!” and that’s that, done and dusted. Saying goodbye to oneself is primarily an interior process in which you create the right conditions through which you find that your self will naturally be “goodbyed”. That’s the only way I can put it. So saying goodbye to oneself isn’t the end of anything but, rather, a continuous beginning. It is not a complete act which is an end in itself. There is nothing self-contained about it. For it is merely one part of a vast process — a journey of self-awareness and self-discovery.

Second, saying goodbye to yourself doesn’t mean you won’t ever mess up. You will stumble. You will trip. You will stagger. And you will be rumbled. This is not a pathway for dilettantes but only for committed cosmonauts. Once one embarks on this goodbye-adventure one opens a Pandora’s Box of insights and while some may amuse or amaze, others will be temporarily uncomfortable. In fact, you may be taken into some of the darkest nights of the soul. The new-era journey which is being processed when one bids goodbye to one’s self is not ideally fitted for an old-era three-dimensional experience, if I can put it like that. Thus, one can find oneself in unexpectedly painful circumstances — physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual as your new life tries to fit itself around your old. But, as you’ll read in more detail below, even your misfortunes will amuse you! You will find them to be infinitely more rewarding than being comfortably numb!

We may think that we have achieved a measure of stability, only to be knocked for six and then realise that we have so much further to go in the process. It is rather like wandering across a vast mountain range. We reach the summit of one peak thinking we’ve “made it”. But there is never really any “making it”. There are many lesser “making-its” but not a “finally-made-it”. One never arrives. For as soon as we reach that one summit, we see stretched ahead of us a myriad other summits waiting to be climbed on the way to our everlasting destination. We soon realise that the summit we find ourselves on is only one peak experience of many to come!

III. WHAT IS THE OUTCOME OF “SAYING GOODBYE TO ONE’S SELF”?

This is a process which is totally transformative of life and outlook. So the results are plentiful. To say goodbye to one’s self — even just to begin the process by laying down the foundation — is life-changing. It can also be a real roller coaster! I mean like shake, rattle, and roll! Everything one thinks and believes (if we allow this process to unfold fully) will be challenged. But, at the same time, there is a highly beneficial fallout. Here is what that beneficial fallout consists of:

1) You Will No Longer Feel the Need to Practise One-upmanship

You will be happy to see others do better than you and excel — especially in those areas in which you work or move. You will feel genuinely pleased for them. You will never seek to “outdo” anyone or be in competition with them. You will be happy to give way and see others shine. In fact, nothing will give you more pleasure than to see that. One-upmanship will be a thing of the past.

2) You Will No Longer Be Offended by Anything or Anyone

The reason for this is because there is nothing (or no silly self) in you to get offended. Only the false ego-self gets offended and as that self is of no consequence in the healthy person’s life, no offence can ever be taken! You will also no longer feel “slighted” by anyone. The reason is because you are already “slight” in your own eyes so there is nothing in you which can ever feel slighted, or which needs to “big itself up”! Neither could you ever feel affronted, peeved, defensive, testy, prickly, exasperated, crestfallen, indignant, resentful, piqued or go off in a huff, or off the deep end. All of that drama will be completely redundant. When the false self has been slain, there is nothing there that can get one’s knickers in a twist anymore. That is freedom! Being around people in churches who are still caught up in all that is a real pain in the ass and solely the result of laziness and a lack of self-awareness. It should all have no place in churches whatsoever.

3) You Will Be Amused by Your Own Misfortunes

If any misfortune befalls you, it will become a source of bemused amusement to you rather than a reason for stress or depression. It will be merely an interesting challenge rather than a flummoxing problem. If something seemingly “bad” happens to you (especially if it is seemingly “by chance”, which of course nothing is), it will not destroy you or send you into a spiral of despair. It will not give you endless sleepless nights. It will not ‘knock you for six’. Instead, it will actually amuse you. You will sometimes even find yourself chuckling out loud at the strange beauty of adversity. People may notice you sharing a little joke with yourself. You will come to appreciate poetic justice. You will see how there are lessons in everything and the first thing you will do when adversity strikes is look for those lessons. “What am I supposed to learn from this?” will be your first thought when anything apparently challenging occurs.

Obviously, I am not speaking here about having no feelings about some major catastrophe such as the bereavement of a loved one or other major loss. However, one will not be thrown in the same kind of way as one previously would have been. One will handle it completely differently. One will not indulge in feeling sorry for oneself (for there is no self for which to feel sorry) or being utterly lost in the mire of grief. In the meantime, countless little misfortunes will have you laughing, smirking, and grinning your way through the wilderness of this world, for you will come to see how God chastises and trains you through them and you will marvel at His wisdom.

4) You Will Not Repeat Any Acts of Stupidity

Those who have said goodbye to their selves may stumble from time to time (and, being aware of it, quickly rectify the aberration), but they will not become involved in stupid cycles of repeated bad choice, in which they make the same mistake over and over again. The one with the ‘goodbyed self’ is a great, quick, and willing learner. If, through watching oneself, one spots a certain pattern, that pattern will inevitably be broken through the vivid epiphany which accompanies the observation. Really seeing through one’s folly is the greatest antidote to it.

5) Your Relationships Will Be Hugely Improved

When two people who have “goodbyed” selves come together, the effect is explosive. Imagine two people sharing lives who each put the other before themselves — where no games are played — where there is no competition (always a passion-killer) — where there is only ever honesty and heart-talk — where defensiveness is a non-issue (and unnecessary anyway) — where one never has to hide vulnerability or weakness, which is never exploited but always cradled and bolstered — where mutual admiration never wanes — where there are surprises every day — where there is almost a twin-like camaraderie. That is what happens — what has to happen and what I believe is only possible when both parties are saying goodbye to their respective selves through which they have seen for what they really are.

6) You Will Be Counteracting the Massive Outburst of Narcissism and ‘Me-ness’ Across this Planet

When you say goodbye to your ‘self’ as a disciple of Christ, you are being an avatar (forerunner) of the age which is yet to come. This is a most important function. For by your actions you are contributing to the build-up of sanctified goodwill and providing a conduit for virtue and angelic dynamism. Your selflessness is counteracting the current unprecedented wave of narcissism in the human field which feeds on — and gives opportunity to — dark forces on earth (to which I believe that there is an eschatological dimension).

This wave of narcissism has even penetrated the visible church. Every day I see posts on social media of folks who claim to be ‘born again’, especially if they were formerly of the New Age persuasion, yet seeking the same kind of validation and celebrity-status which they had previously enjoyed as coaches, witches and shamans before they claimed to have come to Christ (if they truly have, which in a number of cases I doubt). The posts which they place on social media are almost always accompanied by a selfie, just like when they were seeking validation as New Agers! Many of them want to write a trophy book about themselves after claiming to be ‘Christians’ for five minutes and they spend their time teaching on social media when their only instruction has come from the internet in memes and tendentious articles. Rejecting the teaching of Paul the Apostle in Ephesians 4:11-14 (thus courting deception and shipwreck), they eschew personal pastoral guidance and teaching and claim that the Holy Spirit shows them everything they need to know. Many fall prey to self-styled “deliverance ministries” and charismatic impostors because they lack discernment. Furthermore, a number of them become like the Nazi Youth Movement of the Christian scene — over-zealous, stridently indulging in heresy-spotting and gossip-spreading unconfirmed rumours about genuine biblical ministries. It is as if Jesus for them is a trendy fashion-accessory rather than a mighty force which should turn them completely upside-down and inside-out and changed beyond recognition.

Provided one has genuinely been born again, then all this spiritual narcissism should and would be dissolved through personal sanctification and regular Bible teaching from someone wise and pastorally savvy. But they will not submit to human guidance because they know that they would have to humble themselves and would not be able to continue in the small-time ‘celebrity’ status that they have carved out for themselves on social media.

Saying ‘goodbye to one’s self’ is the very last action which would appeal to these folks. For it is the only action which can have a neutralising effect on all this and many other types of spiritual narcissism, so that one becomes a transformed human on a faithful trajectory towards the new heaven and new earth in the midst of the crumbling, dying, old creation of the present.

EPILOGUE

Speaking of angelic dynamism, it is worth noting that when we as disciples of Christ start to walk on this pathway, there will quickly come a point when we will discover that we are not alone — that there are invisible hands guiding us and assisting our efforts, from the Holy Spirit and His angelic cohorts. But we have to make the first steps ourselves. Then help will come. Without fail.

Failure to Deny Ourselves and the Second Death

Coming back to Jesus’s words, “If anyone wants to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me”, He added. “For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”. We can see that this a pure teaching about saying goodbye to one’s self. “Let him deny himself”. When He says, “to come after Me” and “for My sake”, He was not building a cult of the personality but was showing the extraordinary paradox that the more we cling onto our egos in this world (desiring to preserve one’s life), the more we simply ready ourselves for the “second death” — utter separation from God for eternity. Desiring to ‘save your life’ (cling onto your ‘self’) means you will lose it altogether (“second death” separation from God). But “whoever loses his life for my sake will find it”. Losing one’s life there means denying ourselves. That is the equivalence. Thus, when we eschew our ‘selves’ in the renunciation of ego, we will preserve our lives in the age to come, rather than undergo the “second death”, eternal separation from God, which basically is hell. When he speaks of losing one’s life “for My sake”, he means being willing to lose it for the sake of everything of which He was the earthly manifestation — truth, light, justice, peace, and genuine love. Denying oneself for Christ’s sake means being willing to suffer in this world — even being willing to lay down one’s life — because of one’s belief in and love for Christ. That is the ultimate denial of self. We do it for His sake.

Willingly Taking up our Crosses and Eschewing a Life of Ease

Notice also that He says, “and take up his cross”. This is most important. It harks back to what I said earlier about this ‘goodbye-self’ path not being for dilettantes. When we start to make a stand for the truth in Christ in our lives and in this world, ‘goodbying our selves’, there is a price to be paid. We have to be prepared for that and also willing to pay it. The truly seeking soul will be willing to pay anything for it. Although, as disciples of Christ, there will not be a life of ease in this fallen world, there will be one of spiritual reward (which brings its own form of ease — one infinitely deeper and more enriching than any worldly ease).

The wisdom in this verse about the denial of self made a deep impression on me when I first read it many years ago. As life has passed by, I began increasingly to understand its real significance and to ponder how I could uniquely apply it in my own pathway. I hope that you either have joined me in this or will join me now. It really is the only pathway for the disciple of Christ through this life.

In closing, I hope, if you have not done so already, that you will feel moved to bid yourself goodbye — to die to your ‘self’, deny your ‘self’ — and to become what I can only term as ‘a genetically-modified member of the new humanity destined for the creation to come’. When all is said and done, we will all one day awaken from this ever-so-fleeting orchestrated dream to another reality, for better or for worse. That ‘betterness’ or ‘worseness’ (based on following Christ or rejecting Him) depends entirely on whether or not we have denied our ‘selves’ and taken up our crosses. To do so is a certain sign of spiritual salvation and shows our calling and election to be real (2 Peter 1:10).

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© Copyright, Alan Morrison, 2023
[The copyright on my works is merely to protect them from any wanton plagiarism which could result in undesirable changes (as has actually happened!). Readers are free to reproduce my work, so long as it is in the same format and with the exact same content and its origin is acknowledged]