“Yea, and if I be offered upon the sacrifice and service of your faith, I joy, and rejoice with you all. For the same cause also do ye joy, and rejoice with me.” (Philippians 2:17,18)
The mystical religious systems of the world seek in vain to find deliverance from “self.” Achieving “ego death” is impossible, whether through meditation, ecstasy, or drugs. We cannot eradicate “self.”
But there is great deliverance as we grow in Christ from selfishness. The mind of Christ that we have been given in the new birth becomes the very attitude we “apprehend” as we walk in His Spirit. Life becomes less and less about us, and what we’re getting from others, and more and more about serving and giving to God and man. We discover the greatness of servanthood and the beauty of sacrifice. We no longer feel put upon and put out by the demands and necessities that surround us. We become cheerful givers, who are more blessed to give than to receive.
The way of God in Christ is the direct opposite of the way of the world. The god of this world is adept at getting men to focus on themselves. Of him, Jesus said: “Get thee behind me, Satan: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but the things that be of men” (Mk. 8:33).
Jesus embraced the cross upon which He would lay down His life out of love for His Father and us. His was the most selfless life that man ever lived. We are called to follow in His footsteps. To do so is to find a joy and a peace that the world, with all its self-absorbed focus, can never give its adherents. A destination of glory, beauty, and virtue is ahead for every saint of the most high God, who is willing to follow their Master, through death, to resurrection life.
Don’t try to kill “self,” just make it all about Another, who is greater than yourself.