1 Here is another insight that God gave me this week. TO BE ABLE TO SEE THE NEED OF ANOTHER IS THE GIFT OF GOD, THE ANTIDOTE FOR US THAT HE GIVES TO DELIVER US FROM OUR OWN SELFISHNESS. There is something about self-awareness that each of us must grasp or we will continue in the bondage of self-service and relationship failure.

2 There are only two forces that have the power to deliver from addiction to self and self-focus. The first is to be satisfied because of an intimate relationship with the Lord, which fills that person with the abundance of God. The second is helpful, though not complete, and that is discovering that serving self is destructive, and that giving to and helping others is not only contagious, but it is more satisfying than serving self. So let’s learn this:

3 1.Man’s first step into becoming cognitively destroyed and vulnerable was to become self- aware. 2.It is easy to be self-aware. It even appears to be reasonable. But if you look at Scripture, you will easily see that the Scripture’s major thrust is to draw us away from being self-aware and to be other-conscious. "But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing." James 3:14-16 "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others." Phil 2:3-4

4 Selfish ambition is the Greek word “ ἐ ριθεία”. “electionerring a desire to put one’s self forward, a partisan and fractious spirit which does not disdain low arts.” Strong’s "This refers to factionalism, including strife, rivalry, and selfish ambition. It means to advance one’s own selfish interests in an unethical manner." Fruchtenbaum, A. G.

5 1.Man’s first step into becoming cognitively destroyed and vulnerable was to become self- aware. 2.It is easy to be self-aware. It even appears to be reasonable. But if you look at Scripture, you will easily see that the Scripture’s major thrust is to draw us away from being self-aware and to be other-conscious. 3.Initially Adam did not realize that he was naked. 4.Satan’s brilliant strategy was to give man a growing and enfolding consciousness of self, and from that moment it was over, lost to the inflamed SELF.

6 Does God really need to use a love in us for others to deliver us from ourselves? Let’s understand it this way. The first order of God is to love (agape) Him with all our hearts. If we didn’t pick up on that one, we are to love our neighbor as ourselves. If that one doesn’t get any traction there is nothing left but to love SELF with all of our heart, soul and might – and a cursory look around the planet shows that is what is most common; people are addicted to self-love. I have to acknowledge that the majority of my life has been spent in the addiction to self-love and it was in fact being broken and reintroduced to loving my wife more than my love for self that has opened my eyes to what God has been trying to show me for years.

7 I need to share something with you that is essential for you to consider. Maybe God is going to grab somebody with it and give him or her a new perspective at a critical moment. There are two different worlds that we can occupy that determine how we see self and how we interpret our relationships to others. They have different and even opposing perspectives that we must be able to identify. The first has been my view from birth: The need to be loved and to discern when others do, and do not, love ME. Unfortunately, my flesh had commandeered that concept and had rewritten it so as to mean that when people did what I wanted, they loved me, and when they did not, they did not love me. At very best, it only provided me with very temporary and short-lived comfort, that inevitably baited me with higher expectations and hopes and then dashed me in painful disappointment. That is to say that when we look at life that way, we do nothing but create our own misery with our expectations.

8 Let me hasten to say that God created us with the need to be loved, because He chose to love us, making it a perfect balance of need/supply. But as I said, when we don’t look to God for love, or receive it from God through a person who loves with agape love, that need goes unfulfilled and is easily exploited by others who will use our need to extract what they want from us. They offer the promise of “love” as bait so they can extract what they want. To live, looking to be loved as a top priority in this world is a guaranty of misery, abuse and disaster! God does want us to be loved, and loved perfectly, but when we seek first to be loved we make ourselves supremely vulnerable.

9 Look at the internet. How many women and girls do you know who have been seduced and abused by predatory men on the internet? How and why does it happen? Women telegraph their need, looking for love and attention, and predators look for needy women. They say things to gain confidence and trust until they have the opportunity to take and abuse. What sets them up for this misery?It is their own choice to make being loved a priority without giving that need to God. We know that God made us to be loved, but when people seek love as a priority from a world that doesn’t have any to give, they destroy their own lives through their desperate choices which make them vulnerable. So seeking love as a priority is one system we can occupy, but what is the other system that we can live and think by?

10 The other is absolutely revolutionary to common thought. It is the NEED to love others with a self- sacrificing and totally unconditional love. Because it is rooted in the Father, it has NO NEED, except to love without condition. It has no need to be loved and will love unconditionally no matter what is or is not returned. If it ever sees “SELF”, it is only to assess what it has so that it might give to someone else – because it knows that the Father is its own abundant supply. It is impossible to experience an unmet need.