SELF-WILL SHOWS ITSELF IN VARIOUS FORMS.-F.B.Meyer

“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these. Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, envyings, murders, drunkenness, revelings, and such like.” There you have the passion of the self–life in lust. “Are ye so foolish? having begun in the Spirit are ye now made perfect by the flesh?” There you have the aspirations of the self–life, trying to perfect itself. There was a school of perfection in Galatia, and they sought to perfect themselves in their own energy; and there have been schools of perfection since then which have tried to be good in the energy of the self–life. “Let no man beguile you of your reward in a voluntary humility and worshipping of angels, intruding into those things which he hath not seen, vainly puffed up by his fleshly mind, and not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.” There you have some intellectualism prying into the things of God, but not submitting to the will of God and the teaching of God. “When I therefore was thus minded, did I use lightness? or the things that I purpose, do I purpose according to the flesh, that with me there should be yea, yea, and nay, nay?” There you have the self life planning, scheming, and arranging for itself, and the Apostle says: ” I am not going to plan after the flesh.”
We see then that we are always in danger of doing good things from the self pivot. That is our curse. I hear of a man who has consecrated himself to God, and I say to myself: “I will do the same.” I hear of a man who has attracted crowds by some special lantern, or by some new machinery, and I say: ” I too will do the same.” I learn of a school which is teaching a certain line of doctrine, and because I think it will pay, and get me prestige and popularity, I adopt it. But not until I begin to notice the working of my own life, shall I have any conception how perpetually the self-life is underlying all.

F.B.Meyer