S6 EP4 | 4 Steps To Stop Making it About YOU and Bring it Back to Jesus
Join Carla in this thought-provoking episode where she challenges you to self-reflect on whether you’re making your life all about yourself.
Learn four practical steps to shift your focus from self-centeredness to Christ-centeredness.
Are you ready for the challenge?
The Big Question
Are you making it about you?
Questions to consider:
Are you making your struggle all about you?
Are you making your call all about you?
Are you making your giftings all about you?
Are you making your suffering all about you?
Sit with the Holy Spirit and ask Him to reveal areas of self-centeredness. The book of Jonah holds a lot of truth about how we can get lost in our calling and forget to see God’s heart in the midst of our mission.
Let’s Start with Suffering
Jonah made his suffering all about himself, which distracted him from God’s heart. Do you find yourself asking these questions/making these statements?
Why does this always happen to me?
I can never catch a break.
This is so hard for me.
God, why are you doing this to me?
Why is life happening to me this way?
If this questions are shaping your perspective, it might be time to start looking for God IN your struggles, rather than blaming him for your circumstances.
Ask yourself:
Are you looking for his fingerprints?
Are you looking for how you can praise him?
Are you looking for how you can glorify him?
Are you looking for how you can point others to him?
Do you bring attention to him rather than yourself in your struggle?
Our lives as Christians, even our struggles, are meant to glorify God. The power of our testimony has that authority to reveal God and redeem others.
So What Now?
If the Holy Spirit has revealed that you have made it “all about you” you can change! God CAN use you here and now! You just need to:
1. Repent
Don’t live in shame - instead allow conviction to turn your heart to God and His will.
2. Surrender
Surrender is all to Him. Your pain, suffering, calling & desires. He can do so much more with it than you can.
3. Focus on Jesus
What you focus on grows - so allow your mind and heart to be consumed with the goodness of God and look for ways to serve Him and His church.
4. Show Up
Show up where God is calling you. Be obedient to serve and be love in action. Be His hands and feet.
Affirming Truth: The story of my life is not about me. It's about Jesus and His goodness.
“If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.”
Romans 14:8
Connect With Carla:
Inquire about 1:1 coaching ---> carlaagreswellness@gmail.com
Join In His Image Wellness Collective ---> carlaargeswellness@gmail.com
Come hangout on IG with me @carlaarges
Check out the blog
[00:00:00] Carla: Hey friends, welcome to Affirming Truths. I'm your friend and host, Carla Arges. This show is a safe place to share our struggles, grow in faith, and root our identity in Christ. My hope is that you will leave each episode feeling encouraged in your journey. Subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and it would mean the world to me if you would leave a review.
[00:00:30] I am so glad you're here. Let's get started. Hey friends. Welcome to Affirming Truths. I am so glad you're here with me today. But I have to warn you, we are going to have a tough conversation. Are you here for the tough, challenging conversations that actually bring us closer to God? That make us more in his image that helps support our [00:01:00] mental, spiritual and emotional health.
[00:01:01] Are you here for those tough conversations? I hope you are because here my heart and this is my heart behind this podcast. This is my heart behind my one on one coaching and and anything that I do is to come alongside you as you're struggling and point you to Jesus so that you can go from barely surviving to thriving.
[00:01:25] But to get there, we have to have a certain level of self awareness, don't we? And here's the question I want to ask you. Here's the question I want to challenge you with. Are you making it all about you? Are you making it all about you? What? Are you making your struggle all about you? Are you making your call all about you?
[00:01:52] Are you making your giftings all about you? Are you making your suffering all about you? Our [00:02:00]natural human tendency is to be self centered. So if you answered no. I'm going to ask you to really sit back and invite the Holy Spirit in and ask him to reveal to you where you're making it all about you. You know, I am in the midst of a study of Jonah right now, and Jonah is a great example of someone making it all about him.
[00:02:28] You know, he was called, he was a prophet, he was called to give the word of the Lord. To the Ninevites, and what did he do? He made it about him. He made it about how he didn't want to go there. He made it about how it might be hard for him to do it. He made it about how they were Gentiles, not the chosen people of God.
[00:02:51] He made it about how he didn't think they deserved redemption. He made it about him and what did that cause him to do? It [00:03:00] caused him to sin. It caused him to try to flee from the presence of God. It caused him to distrust God's goodness and God's wisdom in the situation. Are you making your struggle all about you?
[00:03:18] Let's start there. Your struggle, your suffering. Do you keep looking at your hard thing thinking, why does this always happen to me? I can never catch a break. This is so hard for me. God, why are you doing this to me? Why is life happening to me this way? Are you making your struggle all about you all about how you can't do things? How you don't have what you think you need How you feel like God is letting you down because he's not giving you what you think you need In your situation?
[00:03:56] Are you distrusting God's goodness [00:04:00] and God's wisdom and God's leading in directing you through this struggle? Are you making it all about you or are you looking for God in your struggle?
[00:04:11] Are you looking for his fingerprints? Are you looking for how you can praise him? Are you looking for how you can glorify him? Are you looking for how you can point others to him? And bring attention to him rather than yourself in your struggle. The same goes for your calling and your gifting. Are you making your call all about you?
[00:04:33] Are you making the way God's gifted you all about you? Is it about your platform, your glory, all the things you think you do, all the ways you think you bless people? Is it about you? Is it about what's convenient for you, what's comfortable for you? Or is it about God, the giver of the gift, the giver of the talent, the giver of the call?
[00:04:59] Because your [00:05:00] talent, your gift, your call is ultimately to point to Jesus, not to point you. You must decrease and he must increase. Are you making it all about you? Here's the thing. When you're making it all about you, you're sitting in sin and we need to recalibrate back to Jesus because this life, our life is not about us.
[00:05:30] It's about God. You know, we look at the story of the Bible from Eden to Revelation and that whole story is all about Jesus. It's the story of redemption from front cover to back cover. It all points to Jesus. That truth doesn't end with the Bible. Our lives are meant to be a living sacrifice to whom? To God.
[00:05:59] [00:06:00] Our lives are meant to point to who? To Jesus. Our lives are not our own. Our lives are not our own. In Psalm 24, 1, we read the earth is the Lord's and everything in it, the world and all who live in it. This is not your life. This is not the story of Karla. This is not the story of you. This is the story of God's goodness, God's mercy, God's grace, God's redemptive power, and the fact that God is coming again.
[00:06:40] So we must turn to him and encourage others to turn to him by the power of our testimony. Are you making it about you guys? I've been guilty of this. There is no shame or judgment in this. The reality is [00:07:00] 100% of people will 100% of the time make it about them at some point in time. So if you're feeling shame, release that right now.
[00:07:10] Shame is not of the Lord. If you're feeling holy conviction, Then I have some hope for you because there is a way to recalibrate back to Jesus. And I'm going to give you four things that you can do when you've been making it all about you to take the attention off you and turn it back right to the life giver.
[00:07:33] To our hope, to our everlasting father, to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, number one, you have to repent, you know, sometimes it's striking to me how Christians, some Christians think that they repent once at the point of salvation, and then because they're saved, they no longer need to repent. Guys, [00:08:00] we need to repent.
[00:08:01] We need to ask for forgiveness, not even for God's sake, for our own, for our own sake, for the acknowledgement that we are off course, for the self awareness that we need the Holy Spirit's power to get back on course. We need to repent. Lord, I am so sorry for making this about me. Holy Spirit, reveal to me the areas of my life where I am focused on me instead of you. Purge me of that, Lord, I pray. Urge me of that, I pray. You need to repent.
[00:08:37] The second thing you need to do is surrender. Ooh, that's another hard one, right? That's another hard one, surrender. Surrender my suffering to the Lord that you may be glorified in it. Surrender my agenda for my gifts and talents to the Lord.
[00:08:55] And pick up His will, and His plan, and His purpose. [00:09:00] Surrender my idea of what the outcome should be. And trust in the wisdom and goodness of our Heavenly Father. You need to surrender. Three, you need to look for Jesus. You need to look for Jesus. See, when we have been making it about us, we've been looking at ourselves.
[00:09:21] We've been looking at our comfort, our discomfort, our convenience, our inconvenience, our suffering, our pain, our focus has not been on Jesus. And here's the thing. What you focus on grows. The more you focus on yourself, the more you're going to focus on yourself and you're going to miss seeing other people and their needs, and you're going to miss seeing Jesus and his fingerprints all over your life.
[00:09:47] So you need to look for Jesus. You need to take your eyes off of self and lift them up to the heavens. Lord, show me your heart. Show me how you're [00:10:00] showing up. Show me where you want me to go. Show me the opportunities to bless others. Show me other people's pain so I can pour into it and give them the comfort that you've given me. Show me, Lord. I'm looking for you.
[00:10:17] And then you have to actually number four, go be his hand and feet to others. One of the best ways to stop making it about us. It's to serve others. We have been called to servant leadership, right? Not to put ourselves on the pedestal, but to get down on our knees like Jesus did and to wash the feet of others.
[00:10:42] The best way to get our eyes off ourselves is to look, where can I bless someone? Where can I bring Jesus into a dark spot in someone's life today? How can I encourage someone? How can I bring someone a meal? How can I pray over someone? How can I [00:11:00] go watch someone's baby while they take a shower? Right?
[00:11:03] How can I show up? How can I volunteer at a soup kitchen and serve a meal? How can I be a service in my church? Go be the hands and feet for others. Because when you make it about you, you're missing. The big picture, when you make it about you, you're missing God's blessing. When you make it about you, you're missing the opportunity to partner with God in his plan, which is always going to be much better than your plan friend.
[00:11:37] Much better. When you make it about you, you sin, because you've created an idol out of yourself. And that's a hard word, but it's a good word. It's a good word to recognize that when we make it about us, we're idolizing ourselves. So guys, [00:12:00] repent. Surrender, look for Jesus, and go be His hand and feet to others.
[00:12:08] Your affirming truth today is, the story of my life is not about me. It's about Jesus and His goodness. I choose to focus on that truth. And we're going to Romans 14:8 for our anchoring verse. For if we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord. So then, whether we live or whether we die we are the Lord's. You are not your own. You are the Lord's. Your life is not your own. It is the Lord's. Your story is not about you. It's about the Lord. So go, boldly in that truth, testifying to your testimony. Pointing people to Jesus, looking for his fingerprints on [00:13:00] your life, and seeing how you can serve others.
[00:13:04] What's your purpose? To glorify God, not yourself. Amen? Amen. Be blessed, guys.
[00:13:20] Thanks for joining me today. I hope we're already friends on social media. But if we're not, come find me on Instagram, at Carla Arges or @AffirmingTruths. Can't wait to see you back here next week. Bye, friends.