This thought came to me driving home this evening from a friend’s home. I know, it looks obvious. Here’s what I mean:
Pretty much all of the sin in my life comes from being self-centered. Whether it is anger (”justified” or not), self-righteousness, lust, being judgemental, whatever, it’s coming from either being focused on me — either filling my needs or wants, admiring my attributes, or even seeing how much of an aecetic I can be, compared to someone else.
However, even when, by some work of the Spirit, I do act out of a conscious desire to worship, to point someone else to the beauty of Christ, my flesh creeps in, and says “good going! I’ll bet they’ll really be [thankful, feeling guilty, loving you, etc.] now!”, drawing my attention away from the joy of knowing that God is being glorified, and true love given, to ways that I can feed the desires of my flesh, and be self-congratulatory, or manipulative, or …. My flesh cannot stand a moment to pass that’s not focused on itself, and constantly seeks to bring attention back to it. My flesh is self-centered.