{"id":301090,"date":"2006-04-11T11:00:00","date_gmt":"2006-04-11T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/%series%\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness\/"},"modified":"2024-10-07T22:42:18","modified_gmt":"2024-10-08T02:42:18","slug":"living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Living Beyond Yourself:  The Discipline of Selflessness"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Gary Thomas encourages those who know Christ to live unselfishly for Him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":91,"featured_media":294104,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"https:\/\/web.familylifetoday.com\/fl2006-04-11.mp3","podmotor_file_id":"","podmotor_episode_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"00:","filesize":"11.41M","filesize_raw":"11959382","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":""},"categories":[2822],"tags":[4722,4299],"podcast_series":[7445],"cwp_profile":[3158],"series":[2101],"class_list":["post-301090","podcast","type-podcast","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-growing-in-your-faith","tag-christianity","tag-faith","podcast_series-authentic-faith","cwp_profile-gary-thomas","series-familylife-today"],"acf":[],"episode_featured_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg?w=508","episode_player_image":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2023\/02\/image-scaled.jpg","download_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-download\/301090\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness","player_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast-player\/301090\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness","audio_player":null,"episode_data":{"playerMode":"light","subscribeUrls":{"apple_podcasts":{"key":"apple_podcasts","url":"https:\/\/podcasts.apple.com\/us\/podcast\/familylife-today\/id212174303?mt=2&app=podcast","label":"Apple Podcasts","class":"apple_podcasts","icon":"apple-podcasts.png"},"google_podcasts":{"key":"google_podcasts","url":"","label":"Google Podcasts","class":"google_podcasts","icon":"google-podcasts.png"},"spotify":{"key":"spotify","url":"https:\/\/open.spotify.com\/show\/0j5UaKdQOHQCuo1bt0ebEm","label":"Spotify","class":"spotify","icon":"spotify.png"},"youtube":{"key":"youtube","url":"","label":"YouTube","class":"youtube","icon":"youtube.png"}},"rssFeedUrl":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/feed\/podcast\/familylife-today","embedCode":"<blockquote class=\"wp-embedded-content\" data-secret=\"X19b60eHzY\"><a href=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness\/\">Living Beyond Yourself:  The Discipline of Selflessness<\/a><\/blockquote><iframe sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" src=\"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/podcast\/familylife-today\/living-beyond-yourself-the-discipline-of-selflessness\/embed\/#?secret=X19b60eHzY\" width=\"500\" height=\"350\" title=\"&#8220;Living Beyond Yourself:  The Discipline of Selflessness&#8221; &#8212; FamilyLife\u00ae - A Cru Ministry\" data-secret=\"X19b60eHzY\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\"><\/iframe><script>\n\/*! This file is auto-generated *\/\n!function(d,l){\"use strict\";l.querySelector&&d.addEventListener&&\"undefined\"!=typeof URL&&(d.wp=d.wp||{},d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage||(d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage=function(e){var t=e.data;if((t||t.secret||t.message||t.value)&&!\/[^a-zA-Z0-9]\/.test(t.secret)){for(var s,r,n,a=l.querySelectorAll('iframe[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),o=l.querySelectorAll('blockquote[data-secret=\"'+t.secret+'\"]'),c=new RegExp(\"^https?:$\",\"i\"),i=0;i<o.length;i++)o[i].style.display=\"none\";for(i=0;i<a.length;i++)s=a[i],e.source===s.contentWindow&&(s.removeAttribute(\"style\"),\"height\"===t.message?(1e3<(r=parseInt(t.value,10))?r=1e3:~~r<200&&(r=200),s.height=r):\"link\"===t.message&&(r=new URL(s.getAttribute(\"src\")),n=new URL(t.value),c.test(n.protocol))&&n.host===r.host&&l.activeElement===s&&(d.top.location.href=t.value))}},d.addEventListener(\"message\",d.wp.receiveEmbedMessage,!1),l.addEventListener(\"DOMContentLoaded\",function(){for(var e,t,s=l.querySelectorAll(\"iframe.wp-embedded-content\"),r=0;r<s.length;r++)(t=(e=s[r]).getAttribute(\"data-secret\"))||(t=Math.random().toString(36).substring(2,12),e.src+=\"#?secret=\"+t,e.setAttribute(\"data-secret\",t)),e.contentWindow.postMessage({message:\"ready\",secret:t},\"*\")},!1)))}(window,document);\n\/\/# sourceURL=https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-includes\/js\/wp-embed.min.js\n<\/script>\n"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1001\/2024\/09\/FLT-Podcast-Cover-2-508x508-3.jpg",508,508,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"kfairris@familylife.com","author_link":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/author\/kfairrisfamilylife-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Gary Thomas encourages those who know Christ to live unselfishly for Him.","meta_box":{"show_notes":"","transcript_url":"https:\/\/transcript.familylifetoday.com\/fl2006-04-11.pdf","transcript_content":"<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0This culture doesn't respect the power of loyalty like it should.\u00a0 We want the excitement of newfound infatuation; we want the exhilaration of a new romance.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 There's something much more profound about that sense of wanting to be that loyal one that somebody can count on that I don't think anything else matches.\u00a0 That's what I want to be as a man \u2013 I want, out of all the people in the world \u2013 my wife to know if somebody is going to come for me, it's going to be Gary.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0This is FamilyLife Today for Tuesday, April 11th.\u00a0 Our host is the president of FamilyLife, Dennis Rainey, and I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 Loyalty may not be listed among the fruit of the spirit, but it is a hallmark of authentic faith.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And welcome to FamilyLife Today, thanks for joining us.\u00a0 You know, there are times in the course of talking with guests here on the program, somebody will say something, and it will stick with you.\u00a0 I remember when John Piper was here, he was telling the story about how around their house somebody will start acting selfish.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yes, that's a problem at Piper's house.\u00a0 Not at yours or mine, though, is it?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0He said when that happens somebody in the family \u2013 there's a song that they sing at their church where it's [sings] \"It's all about you, Jesus.\"\u00a0 He said, \"But at our house when that happens, somebody will start singing, [sings] \"It's all about you, Johnny,\" as a way to kind of wake up the selfish person from his slumber.\u00a0 And there have been a number of times at our house when I've cracked out that song and wanted to sing it to one of my kids or to my wife, or there have been plenty of times when I've needed to have it sung to me.\u00a0 Because selfishness is so core, it's so rooted in our souls \u2013 in fact, if you were to point to one thing that disrupts marriages today; that interferes with families, I don't think you could find anything that would be close to selfishness, do you?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0No.\u00a0 In fact, I'm just smiling listening to you soapbox.\u00a0 You must have had some encounters with selfishness to feel this strongly about it.\u00a0 No, no, I mean \u2013 haven't we all?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Yes.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0But you gave a message, Bob, to a graduating high school class one time, and it was seven \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0\"Seven Irrefutable Truths of Life.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0That's right, and if you want to see all seven, you can go to FamilyLife.com, but give them the one that deals with this.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Well, irrefutable truth number one is there is a God, and it's not you.\u00a0 And then there's irrefutable truth number \u2013 I think it's number five, which says, \"Life is all about God not about you.\"\u00a0 I mean, if we can wake up to those two truths, we're on the right path, I think.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0I think you're right, and I think most of us want to sing a song about ourselves.\u00a0 We don't want \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0[sings] \"It's all about me\" \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0We live life that way, and we make those kinds of choices.\u00a0 Well, if you missed an earlier broadcast, you need to go back to the Web at FamilyLife.com, and listen to a program we did with Gary Thomas on authentic faith, because this week we're talking with Gary Thomas, and I want to welcome you back, even if you are convicting, and you're causing us to have to deal with stuff here on \u2013 not only with our listeners but the hosts are having to deal with stuff.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0Well, thank you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0It's good to have you back.\u00a0 Gary is a popular author of a number of books.\u00a0 He's been on FamilyLife Today.\u00a0 We've talked about \"Sacred Marriage.\"\u00a0 Our listeners loved those series of broadcasts.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0That's a great book.\u00a0 I remember a friend of mine calling me and saying, \"Can you recommend a book for our small group to go through?\u00a0 We want to do something on marriage,\" and they'd been through a lot of your books and a lot of \u2026\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Oh, I'm glad you said that.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0\u2026 [inaudible] that FamilyLife had created.\u00a0 I said, \"You ought to go through Gary Thomas's book, \"Sacred Marriage,\" and I didn't hear from them for a while and about six months later they called back and said that was a great choice.\u00a0 It really forced them to wrestle with some things that all of them needed to wrestle with.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Yes, and he's written a number of other books \u2013 \"Sacred Parenting,\" and this book, \"Authentic Faith,\" and, Gary, what Bob's talking about today is at the core of authentic faith \u2013 selflessness versus selfishness.\u00a0 It's not even easy to say, but we're geared to be totally selfish.\u00a0 In fact, as I was getting ready to talk with you about this, I thought about James, chapter 1, verse 27 where the Apostle James says, \"This is pure and undefiled religion; to visit the orphan and the widow in their distress.\"\u00a0 And you think about it \u2013 those two groups of people, if you go visit them, demand selflessness, and if we're going to meet their needs, we have to deny ourselves, and they can't repay us.\u00a0 I think that is what God's after in our lives, is for us to deny ourselves and find those great moments when we truly have denied ourselves.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0I think that's the greatest movement of Christianity, to be honest.\u00a0 Most people, if you would go to a mall or the city center and stop 100 people and say, \"What's Christianity all about?\"\u00a0 Most of them will give you some moral do's and don't's.\u00a0 Now, morality is important, I don't want to deny that, but morality isn't what changed in Paul's life when he became a Christian.\u00a0 When you think about it, Paul couldn't have been any more holy from a human righteousness perspective as a Christian than he was as a Pharisee, because Pharisees didn't rob widows; Pharisees didn't commit murder; Pharisees didn't log onto the Internet and download pornography, and yet Paul says even in that state, he was apart from the grace of God, cut off from God's mercy, he didn't know the light, he was bathed in darkness.\u00a0 So what did change in his life?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Well, it's interesting \u2013 there was a prayer that Paul prayed every day as a Pharisee, and I don't want to offend any listeners with this prayer.\u00a0 I certainly don't pray the prayer, but Paul did.\u00a0 Every day as a Pharisee he would say, \"Dear Lord, thank you that I'm not a Gentile, thank you that I'm not a woman, and thank you that I'm not a slave.\"\u00a0 So every day he wakes up glorying in the fact he's not a slave.\u00a0 Then he meets Jesus Christ and later he would write to the Corinthians in 1 Corinthians 9:19, \"Though I am free and belong to no man, I make myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Now, he's not just your common, everyday slave.\u00a0 That slave would have to be accountable to a master or a mistress.\u00a0 Paul says he'll make himself a slave to anyone if doing that will bring them into the Gospel, and he takes it to an extreme that I think a lot of modern therapists would try to cure him of.\u00a0 I'm thinking of Romans 9:3, I'm paraphrasing here, but essentially Paul says, \"I wish that I could be damned if in my damnation Israel could be saved.\"\u00a0 And when Paul writes that, he knows the full horrors of hell; the emotional separation from those that he's come to know and love; the physical torture; the pain.\u00a0 Instead of being surrounded by love, joy, peace, patience, kindness \u2013 all that good stuff \u2013 he'd be surrounded by bitterness and jealousy and malice for all eternity.\u00a0 And yet he says still, \"If, in the twilight of going down to hell, I could look over my shoulder and see the nation of Israel marching into heaven, I would make that choice.\"\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And so he's saying, \"I not only will sacrifice my life on this earth, I would sacrifice my destiny for this group of people.\"\u00a0 It's a tremendous shift.\u00a0 In Paul's life as Pharisee it was all about him \u2013 is he righteous from a human perspective?\u00a0 Is he respected as a learned teacher?\u00a0 Is he faultless in upholding the law?\u00a0 That's religion.\u00a0 When Paul met Jesus Christ, suddenly it wasn't about him, it was about lifting up Jesus, and, I'm telling you, this will change your life, it will change how you act as a husband or wife, it will change how you act as a parent and what you expect your family to be as well.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0You know, what you're talking about here, I've just been sitting back listening \u2013 this is one of Christianity's greatest achievements, humanly speaking \u2013 to call selfish men and women, like Bob was talking about earlier, to call them out of their selfishness to care for the needs of others.\u00a0 Paul also went on in Romans 15:1 to say, \"Let us not merely please ourselves but let us please our neighbor.\"\u00a0 Now, the question is, who is your neighbor?\u00a0 Is it just the one next door?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Well, I'll tell you where you start pleasing your neighbor \u2013 it's under your own roof.\u00a0 Christianity's power is that it takes selfish, barbaric men, and it calls them to love their wives as Christ loved the church.\u00a0 He died on behalf of the church.\u00a0 He calls us, as men, to do nothing less.\u00a0 He calls us to love our families, to lead them.\u00a0 And if you think about Christianity and its great contributions to society, there are the visible ones of hospitals, of great humanitarian efforts of feeding the hungry, but there are also those private contributions to a culture and to a nation that will never get the applause of men, but where a man who is strapped on with selfishness, and he's got all this baggage from his dysfunctional family he's come from \u2013 or a woman \u2013 and he meets the Savior, and in the process of meeting the Savior, he calls them to take up that cross, deny himself, and come after Christ for a lifetime.\u00a0 And you know what?\u00a0 That's when you begin to see Christian marriages and Christian families \u2013 authentic, real, living out the life of Christ in those homes.\u00a0 In my opinion, that's where the care for others really begins to occur first.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0Well, and there's great satisfaction in doing that.\u00a0 There is a story from World War I that has transfixed me.\u00a0 It's really the model of what I want to be as a husband and a father.\u00a0 In that war, two American soldiers became very fast friends.\u00a0 They talked about the dreams they had when they got out of the service; the girls they'd left behind; the jobs they hoped that they would one day hold, and then the inevitable order came for them to attack the German forces, so they got out of the trench and in the melee of the battle, they were separated and, of course, the call came for them to retreat a couple of hours later, so one of the soldiers crawls back into the trench.\u00a0 The first thing he does is ask about his friend, has anybody seen him?\u00a0 Nobody had.\u00a0 So finally another soldier speaks up and say, \"Yeah, he was hit.\u00a0 He's about 50 yards out.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Without even thinking, the soldier said, \"I'm going after him.\"\u00a0 But his commanding officer was right there saying, \"Absolutely not, Private.\u00a0 I've lost another man already.\u00a0 It's a suicide mission to go out there.\u00a0 You're to stay right where you are.\"\u00a0 So he waited until the commanding officer's back was turned, and then crawled out of the ditch.\u00a0 He knew nobody would go after him.\u00a0 It was a suicide mission, and so the German guns are trained right on him, which means he has to hug that ground as carefully as he can, and I don't want to get too explicit here, but this is a piece of ground on which a war had been fought, but he is climbing through the muck and the gore, finally reaches his friend, turns him over, they have just a couple of seconds to share some words, and then he starts to drag him back to the trench.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Unfortunately, the friend had been mortally wounded, and he died sometime on that trip back to the ditch.\u00a0 The commanding officer was right there, furious that his orders had been disobeyed, and he comes right up into the soldier's face and says, \"Tell me, soldier, was it worth it for you to risk your life to bring back a dead man that we could have gotten in a couple of hours?\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And the soldier shocked him by saying, \"Absolutely, sir, it was worth it.\"\u00a0 He said, \"What could possibly make it worth it for you to take that risk?\"\u00a0 And he said, \"Sir, when I turned him over, he looked at me, and he said, \"I knew you'd come.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0That's what I want to be as a man.\u00a0 I want, out of all the people in the world, my wife to know if somebody is going to come for me, it's going to be Gary.\u00a0 I want my kids to know everybody else may forsake me, I can count on that man.\u00a0 This culture doesn't respect the power of loyalty like it should.\u00a0 We want the excitement of newfound infatuation; we want the exhilaration of a new romance.\u00a0 But you know what?\u00a0 There's something much more profound about that sense of wanting to be that loyal one that somebody can count on that I don't think anything else matches.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0The thing that hits me as you tell that story is that is the message of Christ \u2013 to get outside of ourselves and to care about other people.\u00a0 And, Gary, one of the things that you write about in your book, \"Authentic Faith,\" and it was a unique approach that I really liked.\u00a0 You said, \"The ancients have some significant things to say to us.\"\u00a0 But one of the ancients you quoted was not a man who lived hundreds of years ago but a man who lived in the previous century, C.S. Lewis.\u00a0 And you quote him as saying, \"Keep nothing back.\"\u00a0 That's his call to us.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0But you quote a larger section around that, and I want to read this to our listeners, because I found this really good.\u00a0 \"The principle runs through all of life from top to bottom.\u00a0 Give up yourself and you'll find your real self.\u00a0 Lose your life, and you'll save it.\u00a0 Submit to death \u2013 death of your ambitions and favorite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end, submit with every fiber of your being, and you will find eternal life.\u00a0 Keep nothing back.\u00a0 Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours.\u00a0 Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead.\u00a0 Look for yourself, and you will find, in the long run, only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay.\u00a0 But look for Christ, and you'll find Him, and with Him everything else thrown in.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0C.S. Lewis was a man who lived what he wrote about.\u00a0 You told a story about how he rescued orphans or children who had been really pushed out of London?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0Yes, during the Second World War there existed a number of what they called \"war orphans.\"\u00a0 They weren't completely orphans, but their dad was fighting the war, their moms were out doing what needed to be done for the sake of industry, and so there was nobody there to watch after the kids.\u00a0 So C.S. Lewis and his brother took in a number of young children in The Kilns and, being a writer, I can understand the sacrifice he was making in doing that.\u00a0 That's where he worked, that's where he prepared his talks, that's where he was working on his books, and to bring a bunch of noisy children running around the house, and you would think that would be a huge impediment to his work but, actually, it gave birth to what many consider his greatest work. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Because one afternoon a young girl came up to him, and she said, \"Dr. Lewis, I notice there is a big wardrobe in one of the rooms upstairs.\u00a0 I wonder if you can go behind it or if there is anything in it?\"\u00a0 And that, of course, gave him the seed of thought for \"The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe,\" and it's interesting how often you might think that you're giving up opportunities of ministry, but it's those interruptions, those inconveniences, that God often uses for our greatest ministry.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0In fact, you say that it is our holy self-forgetfulness that is the most genuine mark of our true faith.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tGary:\u00a0Jesus said very clearly, \"The Son of Man came not to be served but to serve,\" and Christianity is about being conformed into the image of Jesus Christ, which means literally being conformed into the image of a servant.\u00a0 Now, what's exciting to me about this, being a married man with children, is that I have found being married and being a parent are the two most effective disciplines to teach me to be selfless.\u00a0 That's when I have to truly die to myself and no longer do I wake up and say, \"What do I want to do today?\"\u00a0 It's \"What does my family need me to do today?\"\u00a0 And mothers are doing that every day.\u00a0 They're waking up, and they're saying, \"What about my needs?\u00a0 What about my desires?\"\u00a0 And what I want to say is, there is great spiritual benefit in being in a relationship that calls you to die to yourself daily.\u00a0 It's not easy, but it's what Christianity is all about.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Philippians, chapter 2, makes it clear.\u00a0 We should have no selfish ambition.\u00a0 We should not seek our own rights but instead seek to serve other people.\u00a0 And as you've been talking here, Gary, I've just been thinking, \"Where do we start?\"\u00a0 If someone is listening to this today, and they are challenged by Paul's words and some of the things we've said and illustrated here where do they start?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0Is there an arsenic for our selfishness \u2013 some way that we can poison it?\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tDennis:\u00a0Well, there really is.\u00a0 It's the cross of Christ, and we pick up that cross and come after Christ.\u00a0 And I remember one of the most tangible ways Barbara and I did this when we started out our marriage.\u00a0 We signed a title deed of our lives to Christ, where we gave Him complete ownership of our lives, and I still think that was one of the most important things we've ever done in terms of answering this call right here \u2013 to selflessness.\u00a0 Because if you haven't ever done that, how do you live from that?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Now, just because we did it, does that mean we whipped selfishness?\u00a0 Absolutely not.\u00a0 But if you've got a point in your where you can look back and say you know what?\u00a0 I have irrevocably given God everything I've dreamed of, everything I wish to have, my ego, my desires, my lusts and said, \"Here, they're Yours.\"\u00a0 From that, I think we can make some other decisions.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And then a second thing I'd encourage people to do is to give up their rights.\u00a0 Paul said he was a slave to how many?\u00a0 All.\u00a0 A slave has what?\u00a0 No rights.\u00a0 If you're going to be a great husband, a great wife, mom, dad, grandparent, or child, you're going to do it as God designed you to do it, then that means you have to become a slave, and a slave has no rights.\u00a0 You give up those rights and follow Christ.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And then, finally, third, I think to live as we've talked about today demands sacrifice, and sometimes I don't want to get up out of my easy chair and go help Barbara bring in the groceries.\u00a0 Now, that sounds like a very small matter, but you know what?\u00a0 It's real easy to be selfish right there.\u00a0 And that's a small sacrifice on behalf of my wife, but you know what?\u00a0 For me it is an act of honoring her and being selfless rather than selfish, and I think that's what Christ calls us to do.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tBob:\u00a0And, you know, you stop and think, if we don't address this, can we really walk out into the world and say, \"We are followers of Christ, and we love Jesus.\"\u00a0 If we're not attacking sin at its root \u2013 I remember asking someone once, \"How would you define the basics of what the Christian life is?\"\u00a0 And he said, \"I asked somebody, 'Do you love God?' and the second thing is 'Do you hate sin?' and the third is, 'Are you willing to follow Jesus?'\"\u00a0 He said, \"If they can answer positively to those three questions,\" he said, \"then I think they've made the appropriate confession.\"\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And I think Gary's book, \"Authentic Faith,\" is instructive in helping us get to the root of what it means to be a Christ follower and how that's going to play out in our marriage and how it's going to play out in our family and how we can be radically transformed by the power of the Gospel.\u00a0 We've got copies of Gary's book in our FamilyLife Resource Center.\u00a0 I wish I could get a copy of this in the hands of everybody who is listening to FamilyLife Today, and I wish we could all read through it together, but the next-best thing is to invite you to go to our website at FamilyLife.com, click on the \"Go\" button that you find in the center of the screen, and that will take you right to the page where you can get more information about the book, \"Authentic Faith, the Power of a Fire-Tested Life,\" by Gary Thomas.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0You'll also find additional resources listed in our website including a book by our friend, Elisabeth Elliott.\u00a0 It's a small book called \"Faith That Does Not Falter,\" and it really reinforces a lot of the themes that you talk about in your book, Gary.\u00a0 If any of our listeners are interested in ordering both of these books from our website at FamilyLife.com, we will send along at no additional cost, the CD audio of the conversation we've been having this week with Gary Thomas.\u00a0 Again, all the details are on our website at FamilyLife.com, or you can call 1-800-FLTODAY for more information about how to receive these resources; 1-800-F-as-in-family, L-as-in-life, and then the word TODAY.\u00a0 These are books that will help you wrestle with the reality of your own faith and will help strengthen you in your relationship with Christ.\u00a0 And we want to encourage you to either go online or call us and get copies of these books.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And, of course, with this being Holy Week, with Easter being this Sunday, all of us are spending time remembering the final week of Jesus's life on earth \u2013 the celebration of the Last Supper, His Crucifixion, and His Resurrection, which we will celebrate on Sunday.\u00a0 One of the ways that the life of Christ has been dramatically portrayed for billions of people worldwide is through the Jesus film, and I know many of our listeners have had a chance to see that film.\u00a0 Recently, it has been digitally remastered and made available on DVD, and one of the great things about DVD technology is you can select which audio track you'd like, and you can view the movie in English or with Spanish dubbed in, German, Arabic, Korean, Vietnamese, Tagalog, which means this DVD is a great gift that you can give to someone for whom English is not a first language.\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0And this week we wanted to make the DVD available to any of our listeners who would be willing to make a donation to the ministry of FamilyLife Today.\u00a0 We are listener-supported, which means that we depend on folks like you to help with donations in order to continue this radio ministry.\u00a0 And as you are able to help us with those financial needs, we are happy to say thank you to you with practical resources to help strengthen your marriage, your family, and your faith.\u00a0 So as you make a donation this week, I want to encourage you \u2013 just mention that you'd like the Jesus DVD, and we'll be happy to send it to you.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0You can make a donation over the phone by calling 1-800-FLTODAY and, again, mention you'd like the DVD on the life of Jesus, and we'll send that to you.\u00a0 Or donate online, and as you fill out your donation form, when you come to the keycode box, just write the name \"Jesus\" in there, and we'll know you'd like the DVD and, again, we'll get it out to you and thanks for your partnership with us.\u00a0 We really do appreciate the financial support.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0Well, tomorrow Gary Thomas is going to be back with us.\u00a0 We're going to continue to look at the evidence of authentic faith in the life of a believer, and I hope you can be here with us for that conversation.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0I want to thank our engineer today, Keith Lynch, and our entire broadcast production team.\u00a0 On behalf of our host, Dennis Rainey, I'm Bob Lepine.\u00a0 We'll see you back next time for another edition of FamilyLife Today. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0FamilyLife Today is a production of FamilyLife of Little Rock, Arkansas, a ministry of Campus Crusade for Christ. \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tWe are so happy to provide these transcripts to you.\u00a0 However, there is a cost to transcribe, create, and produce them for our website.\u00a0 If you\u2019ve benefited from the broadcast transcripts, would\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t\u00a0you consider <a href=\"http:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/site\/c.dnJHKLNnFoG\/b.3782043\/k.384D\/Support_Us.htm\">donating today<\/a> to help defray the costs?\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\tCopyright \u00a9 FamilyLife.\u00a0 All rights reserved.\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<a href=\"http:\/\/www.FamilyLife.com\">www.FamilyLife.com<\/a>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n\t\t\t<p>\n\t\t\t\t<strong>\u00a0<\/strong>\n\t\t\t<\/p>","theme_header_position":"","post_header_is_sticky":"","is_header_overlay":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast\/301090","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/podcast"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/91"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=301090"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/294104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301090"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301090"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301090"},{"taxonomy":"podcast_series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/podcast_series?post=301090"},{"taxonomy":"cwp_profile","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/cwp_profile?post=301090"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp-stage.familylife.com\/www\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=301090"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}