The Kingdom of Self

By: Dr. Steven C. Riser; ©2007

Man, searching for solutions to his manifold problems, is consumed by a desire to study himself. However, none of today’s behavioral scientists have advanced solutions of lasting benefit because they fail to effectively deal with man’s greatest problem; his innate voracious egotism – his sick, sinful, selfish ego.

Romans 7:19, 24-25; 8:5-13

Introduction

Man, searching for solutions to his manifold problems, is consumed by a desire to study himself. However, none of today’s behavioral scientists have advanced solutions of lasting benefit because they fail to effectively deal with man’s greatest problem; his innate voracious egotism – his sick, sinful, selfish ego. You are not okay and neither am I as long as we remain enthroned supreme in the kingdom of self.

In this article, we’ll to take a closer look at the Kingdom of Self. We’ll identify the limits of our own kingdom and examine a viable alternative to this tight and suffocating world of self-love and self-interest. We’ll discover a passport to another Kingdom – a realm of peace and purpose that most self-enthroned monarchs spend a lifetime seeking but never find – the Kingdom of God.

I. The Biggest Problem with Me Is Me

Can I get personal? My biggest problem with me is me. My biggest problem with myself is myself. For too many years I have acted as if the world revolved around me. Ever since I was born, I set about establishing my absolute sovereignty by seeking to command the love and the service of those around me.

We are all god-players – spiritual imposters. We have tried to create our own little world with ourselves placed squarely in the center of it. Only God has the right to be in the center. The throne in the center of our lives was created by God and for God. When we sit on the throne we usurp His rightful place in our lives. When we’re on the throne, we’re tempted to act like God – unwilling to admit when we’re wrong.

God has no place in our world because we have taken His place. Our whole life story is how we tried to set things up according to our will and our plans and our desires. We wanted to be a king and to build ourselves a kingdom. How foolish and how unrealistic we are to think that we’re the center of the universe and that the whole world revolves around us!

The truth is: we aren’t gods, we aren’t even kings and the world doesn’t revolve around us, we are plain ordinary everyday people with feet of clay. The place for us human beings in this world is: together, equal and united, under and around God. How does this kingdom of self come about in the first place?

II. The Birth of the Kingdom of Self

As soon as man is born he declares war on God. The war is over this issue, who is number one? Is it I or is it Thou, I think it is I. What are some of the cardinal beliefs of the kingdom of self?

One is: I’m basically good (not sinful), I possess the wisdom and ability to solve all the problems I create. This belief coincides with almost everything we read except the Bible (cf. Romans 7:19, 24-25; 8:5-13).

Truth by most people’s standards is determined by whether something corresponds with what they think or feel rather than by what God says. The fact that so few people are willing to admit they are wrong illustrates this deep desire to protect, defend and if possible to extend the Kingdom of self. Psychologists readily admit that our ego defense mechanisms distort or deny reality. They are designed to defend our Kingdom and to protect the pseudo God – to protect our fragile little egos from being bruised.

Bit by bit the pseudo king is forced to retreat into an unreal world where his right to rule and authority are unquestioned. Above all, it’s imperative that he be right, for infallibility is the universal badge of the kingly office. Anything is preferable to being wrong.

There was a man in a long term adult psychiatric institution. The psychiatrist asked him, “Would you rather walk out of this facility and never have to return, or be right? He said, “I’d rather be right.” That’s the price that some pay for being enthroned in this dark, difficult and destructive kingdom!

So, the self erects walls of ego defense mechanisms in order to protect his unreal world from collapse. Most of us cannot bear to see ourselves in the present as we really are so we retreat into the past or fantasize about the future. We rob ourselves of the joy of living in the present – in God’s presence. We engage in vicarious living through others rather than really living our own lives (John 10:10b).

A person that has the habit of tardiness clearly indicates that he considers his time more important than the time of others. Impatience means that you must get on my schedule and do things my way.

It’s common today to hear people say, “As long as I feel something is right for me then it’s alright to do it.” This statement reflects our kingship over God’s. He is the only valid standard of reality and morality.

One of the tragedies is that many parents encourage their children to build their own kingdom of self: 1) directly by failing to represent God’s authority over them and through being too permissive; and 2) indirectly by the example of their own egocentric lives. In the name of self-esteem, many parents massage their children’s egos and realize too late that they have created little narcissistic monsters. If you never admit that you’re wrong, how will you ever expect your children to admit they are wrong?

How much better to teach our children proper self-respect than self-esteem? How can we teach our children proper self-respect if we don’t teach and model a proper respect and regard for God? Don’t you realize that high self-esteem without proper self-respect is more a liability than an asset?

You hear a lot of talk about the importance of self-esteem today, don’t you? Some teachers and parents will bend over backwards not to damage their children’s self-esteem, right? Here’s my question: Is it proper for any Christian to esteem or value highly our sinful ego-centric human nature?

What did Paul tell us about the value of the old nature in Romans 8:5-13?

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. The mind of sinful man is death, but the mind controlled by the Spirit is life and peace; the sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those controlled by the sinful nature cannot please God. You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation – but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.”

1. It’s one thing to esteem or highly value our new nature (2 Cor. 5:17; Eph. 4:23-24);
2. It’s quite another to esteem or highly value our old nature (Rom. 7:19-25; 8:5-13).

Life in the center of one’s own world is the loneliest spot in the universe. Selfishness causes loneliness and the more self-centered we are, the more lonely we are – let there be no doubt about this. Living in the Kingdom of Self is like hell on earth, nothing but confusion and alienation without peace or any meaningful purpose. Living with ourselves in the center is very difficult: foolish, vain, empty and unrealistic.

It’s painful but necessary to give up the illusion of divinity and confess our humanity – to admit: I’m finite and fallible. I often am in need of help from others. I’m not above God’s law nor am I an exception to it and most importantly I am constantly in need of the grace of God for my very existence.

Are you getting a little more realistic picture of your unregenerate self – your selfish, sinful nature? Note: I’m not talking about our new nature, but about our old nature, our pre-Christian, unregenerate nature.

III. The Agonies of a Pseudo-God

The life of a pseudo-god is very hard and becomes more painful as life continues. This isn’t God’s fault. The egoist’s suffering is self-inflicted for he reaps what he sows. All of us earn the right to be miserable. Life enthroned in the Kingdom of Self is like spitting into the wind! The truth is, in the end, we really don’t break God’s laws so much as when we violate them, they break us – these are the reproofs of life.

The agony of the pseudo-god manifests itself in anger, fear, guilt, anxiety and worry, despair, depression, cynicism and pessimism – which are all counter-productive emotions leading to self-destruction. It can lead to an inner bondage so destructive that it can control and eventually ruin our life.

One of the most common forms of anger is resentment, which if allowed to fester eventually hardens into bitterness which poisons the soul and is all consuming. Unrighteous anger is the expression of a person’s condemning judgment to which we do not have any right. Only God has the right to judge and condemn. Unrighteous anger is more often than not an expression of a selfish little king who did not get his way.

Fear, anxiety and worry are based on our desire to control and our inability to control the future. Fear may involve misplaced trust and/or wrong values and priorities. Faith in God can and does dissolve such fears as we learn to trust Him with our future welfare. In Mark 4:40 Jesus said, “Why are you afraid, have you no faith?” The solution to the problem of fear is the promise of God’s powerful, loving presence. It’s not found in an idea, an explanation or an insight, but in a person. Jesus said, “Fear not, for I am with you.”

Guilt and guilt feelings can self-destruct a person like nothing else can. Guilt is certainly a major cause of psychological problems and can have the effect of disintegrating the personality. The nature of guilt is that it seeks to punish us for wrongdoing. Anger, fear and guilt are of our own making – the result of egocentric living – the inevitable result of being enthrone supreme in the Kingdom of Self.

From God’s view, there are only two kingdoms. In one, you “follow Him” and obey His will and ways. In the other, there is only “worship of self,” which is always in competition against God’s wise and loving ways.

There is a monumental clash coming between these two Kingdoms as they compete for our souls. The main question is: Who is Number 1? This struggle first originated in Heaven as Lucifer decided to strive against God to become number one. Look at the number of times Satan said, “I will” in Isaiah 14. This same powerful spirit is alive in the world today, motivating people to exalt themselves on the throne of their own lives.

Do you know what the essence of sin is? Sin is rebellion – replacing the one true God with a pseudo-god. The essence of sin is putting our ego on the throne of our life – it is the Kingdom of self and that’s why it’s our greatest problem. The sad truth is that many people don’t even view it as a problem or liability but rather as a virtue and an asset. Too many people have the attitude: “I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul,” and nothing could be further from the truth!

The basic solution to the problem of guilt is by faith accepting the sufficiency of the atoning sacrifice of Christ on our behalf rather than punishing ourselves by trying to atone for our own sins. The basic solution to our problems is giving Christ his rightful place – the throne of our lives. This however presents a problem; because there can be only one god on the throne at a time and we are already on our throne. If we are to give Christ the throne in our lives, we must first resign as god and vacate the throne. And take our role as sons and servants of God.

People who profess to be Christians and come to church are just nominal Christians playing church if they remain enthroned supreme in their own little kingdoms and refuse to surrender to the true King.

For the first 16 years of my life I was enthroned in the Kingdom of Self. I didn’t love God and had no desire to please Him. After hearing the Gospel, it took me several weeks before coming to the place in my life where I was willing to resign as king and exalt Jesus as the one true King.

Someone shared the following illustration with me: Suppose you are driving down the highway of life and you come to the cross roads. You see Jesus Christ standing at the intersection hitch-hiking. You’re a nice person so you stop your car and open the back door and offer Him a ride. He just stands there unresponsive. Then you say, Oh excuse me, Jesus, I didn’t mean to give you a back seat. So you open up the passenger door and invite him in your car. Still, no response. Why is Jesus so unresponsive? It suddenly dawns on you that the only place you haven’t offered Him is the driver’s seat. Jesus doesn’t make a very good backseat driver, does He? The truth is the Jesus isn’t interested in the way you are going because without Him you are going the wrong way. Jesus not only knows the way to God, He is the only way to God. No one comes to the Father except by means of Him (John 14:6)!

If we don’t give Christ the driver’s seat of our lives, then we must be content to control ourselves, run our own lives, drive our own cars. However Proverbs cautions us that “there is a way which seems right to a man but its end is the way of death.” Jesus put it this way, “He who would save his life will lose it, but he who loses his life for my sake and the gospel will find it.” Paul and Jesus both teach that we can either be a slave of Christ or a slave of sin. To put it another way, we can either have Christ on the throne of our lives or we can have self on the throne and whenever the ego is on the throne we are slaves of sin.

True, we do have an option as to what kind of sin we want to be in bondage to: hatred, fear, anger, sensual desires, false ideologies, materialism, chemical dependence, TV, work, music, food, alcohol, gossip, verbal and physical abuse, etc. Take your pick; you have a wide variety of sins to choose from. I prefer to be a slave of Christ rather than a slave of sin, how about you?

Since bondages are only arrested and never cured, we need to stay under Christ’s authority and the Spirit’s control in order to maintain our freedom. Only through God’s enablement do we have the power to do what we ought. A self-centered person is always in bondage, only a Christ-follower who continues to obey God’s Word and submit to His Spirit can become free from the power of sin in his life.

God has ordained His Word, Spirit and His Body and the various spiritual disciplines as the means by which we submit to Him and maintain our freedom. Don’t try and go it alone and expect to be successful. It takes others to bring out the best in you. “Just as iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another.”

Life in the Kingdom of Self adds up to one thing: self-inflicted suffering and servitude to sin. Eventually the reproofs of life catch up with us and the cup of suffering overflowing in each of us and we hit bottom. Often it’s when we hit bottom that we’re ready to leave the Kingdom of Self and enter God’s Kingdom. The end of one kingdom is the beginning of another. The suffering of one kingdom precedes the joy of the other kingdom. We must die to ourselves before we can live for Christ (Gal. 2:20).

How many people do you know who use the desire to be happy as an excuse to disobey God’s Word? Truth: this is nothing more than a rationalization and the irony is that happiness comes through obeying God and not disobeying Him. Whenever people are in bondage to sin, they are not happy!

Unfortunately many people look upon God as an enemy because He challenges their right to self-rule. What’s the solution? It’s not to be found in past history or future research but rooted in present reality. What is the truth? The truth is that the world has not, does not, and will never revolve any around us.

Have you ever heard of the three Spiritual laws?

1. There is only one God.
2. You are not Him.
3. Repent.

IV. Entering the Kingdom of God – (Col. 1:12-13)

“…the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light. For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves.”

Clearly, the solution to the Kingdom of self is the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of God is essentially the rule of Christ in the heart of the individual as opposed to the rule of self. The solution is found in Christ: for only He can satisfy our deepest needs, answer of questions, solve our problems and end our search for true meaning in life. The Gospel is God’s power to make us whole. This I know because the Bible says so.

Can you tell me what is the first of the 10 Commandments? “You shall have no other gods before me.” This would include the pseudo-god called the self. Elevating the self to the throne of our life is nothing short of idolatry as well as cosmic treason. Can anyone tell me what Jesus said was the greatest commandment? Loving God first and foremost. How can we possibly love God first and foremost when we usurp His throne and worship ourselves?

If we would experience God’s grace, we must humble ourselves before His throne. For God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. The decision to enter the Kingdom of God doesn’t require that our feelings be in full support, what’s necessary is that we capitulate regardless of how we feel. Salvation is a function of faith not our feelings. We need to submit to the authority of Christ and His Word. The truth of God’s Word frees us and transforms us as we allow it to renew our mind (Romans 12:1-2).

Jesus clearly taught in John 3:3ff that we can’t see or enter the Kingdom of God without being born again. Jesus said that He is the door and that we must enter the Kingdom of God through Him (Jn. 10). The door is located at the foot of the cross and we open the door with the key of faith acknowledging Jesus Christ as our Savor from sin and Lord of our lives (Rom. 10: 9, 10). Without the regeneration of the Holy Spirit, none of us will see or enter the God’s Kingdom.

It is clear from Scripture that:

1. Only the Holy Spirit can deliver us from the Kingdom of Self and all the bondages associated with it.
2. Only the Spirit can make us spiritually alive and responsive to God.
3. Only the Spirit can increasingly free us from the power of sin in our lives.
4. Only the Spirit can manifest the fruits of the Spirit that we all desperately need in our lives.
5. Only the Spirit can give us the desire and ability to please God as we respond to His grace in gratitude.
6. Only the Spirit can produce the personal, positive, powerful and permanent changes that we need!

We experience many positive consequences when we leave the Kingdom of Self and enter God’s Kingdom: Christ brings joy when He comes into our lives! “Joy is the flag we fly from the castle tower of our hearts when the king is in residence there.” The fruit of the Spirit and loving relationships with God, ourselves and others characterize God’s Kingdom (Gal. 5: 22, 23). Jesus said that we should seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness (Matt. 6:33)! We are to seek first His rule in our lives! We experience not only peace with God but also the peace of God that passes all human understanding.

Those who reject God’s Kingdom can do so only on the grounds that it offers too much rather than too little. In rejecting God’s rule we deprive ourselves of Christ’s righteousness and rob our own souls.

The initial act of surrender to King Jesus must be followed by daily preferring His rule to self-rule (Luke 9:23). Those who would follow Christ must deny themselves the throne of their lives daily.

Conclusion

My question for you today is: Which kingdom are you in?

1. The kingdom of self? Are you sufficiently miserable to want to leave that Kingdom for another one?
2. The kingdom of God? Is your citizenship in heaven? If so, how do you know? Is Christ ruling in your heart right now? Is your heart Christ’s home? Is He ruling in your hearts through faith? Is your life overflowing with the fruits of the Spirit? Have you been transferred from the Kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of God’s beloved Son?

Jesus knows what’s best and He wants what’s best. Are you willing to receive His best? Are you willing to surrender your will to God’s will? If so, tell Him right now through prayer. I implore you to abandon the Kingdom of self and by the grace of God enter into His Kingdom today.