The Lord’s Light Exposes how Sinful we are, and We Forsake the Self and Depend on God

We human beings were created by God for the purpose of expressing and representing God, but due to the fall of man, we now now have sin us, for we express ourselves and not God, seeking our own glory and not His; we need to take Christ as our sin offering and learn to forsake all that is from the self and completely depend on God.

Oh Lord Jesus, shine on us! Show us that we are a constitution of sin. Show us how sinful we are in our very nature. We take You, Lord Jesus, as our sin offering. We take You as our life. We depend on You. We want to do nothing apart from You. You are everything to us. Live in us today. Be expressed through us today! Amen!

How we thank and praise the Lord for regenerating us with His life and bringing us into His kingdom. Now we are believers in Christ, those who love the Lord, enjoy Him, and pursue Him; we also meet with the saints in the local church in the locality where He placed us, and we are built up together in the Body of Christ. How wonderful!

However, even though we have believed into the Lord Jesus and have the divine life and nature in us, we need to realise that the sinful nature of Satan is still in us; as long as we are in the flesh, we have sin in our very nature.

Yes, Christ as life is in our spirit, and He is seeking to spread, seep into, and increase in our mind, emotion, will, and all the inward parts of our being.

However, Satan is still in the flesh, and sin is eagerly awaiting for the right condition to cause us to fail. Sometimes we sin even without knowing, and sometimes we sin and then we realise that it was a sin.

In Galatians 5:24-26, as Paul was writing to the saints in Galatia, he told them not to be vainglorious, not provoking one another, and not envying one another; this was written to saints, not to unbelievers.

This means that, as those who love the Lord and pursue Him with the saints, we may still be vainglorious, we may still envy other saints, and we may still argue with one another and provoke one another.

Whenever we live in the flesh, when we do not live in the mingled spirit, what comes out of us is sin, whether we realise this or not. Oh Lord Jesus!

We really need the Lord’s shining in this matter.

We need to see that we are a constitution of sin, that we are sinful by nature, and that everything coming out of ourselves is just sin, for only when we’re in our spirit we are not sinful but rather, we fulfil the righteous requirement of the Lord and express God. Oh Lord, our spirit!

Sin is Being for the Self, Falling short of the Glory of God; we need the Lord’s Light to expose how Sinful we are!

Genesis 1:26 shows us clearly that man was created by God for the purpose of expressing God and representing God, for man is in God’s image and according to His likeness, and man was given dominion over all things for God. What a lofty and glorious purpose!

Furthermore, as Isaiah 43:7 tells us, we are called by God’s name, for He has created us, formed us, and even made us for His glory.

This is why we are created; we are created by God in His image and according to His likeness so that we may express God in His glory and represent Him with His dominion.

As those created by God for the purpose of expressing and representing God, we should be for nothing other than God, and we should be absolutely for God! Amen!

However, due to man’s fall, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23). To sin is not just to do something evil; to sin is to fall short of the glory of God.

Instead of expressing God, we now express ourselves. Sin is being for the self, expressing the self, seeking glory for the self, and doing all things for the self.

Today’s society encourages self-love, self-care, and self-pampering; the Bible, however, calls this a sin. Not only do we love the self and do things for the self; even the good things we do are not for God but still for the self.

Whenever we do something apart from Christ, whenever we say or do something apart from being one with the Lord, we are independent of God, and we sin.

Our love for others and our hatred for others are in the self, so they are both sin; not only is our hatred a sin, but even our loving others apart from God is a sin. Oh Lord!

Unless we are in our spirit when we love or hate something, we sin, for it comes from the same tree: the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which signifies Satan.

Not only is evil from Satan, even good is from Satan, if we do good apart from being in our spirit, one with the Lord.

Sin involves a power struggle: the self wants to be on the throne, dethroning God, so the self will even do good things, righteous deeds, and spiritual things, but they are for the self, not for God. Oh Lord!

Loving others seems to be good, but the self can love others too, and this love is not pure, for we love others for our good, our position, our name, our benefit, and our pride.

This kind of love is a power struggle with God. We really need to let the Lord shine on us in this matter to see that sin is being for the self and doing things for the self, not for God and His glory.

Our love for our children may be in the flesh, and our raising our children may be for the self, and therefore be a sin. Yes, we need to raise up our children in the Lord, and we need to help them be in the fear of the Lord as they grow up; however, if we raise up our children for ourselves and our future, that is a sin (Luke 14:12-14; cf. 1 Cor. 7:14).

Only when the Lord shines on us in this matter, when we have His light in this respect, can we truly see how much we live in sin, for we express ourselves, live for ourselves, do things in ourselves, and seek our own glory even in the good things that we do.

Even serving the Lord for ourselves is sin; preaching ourselves is sin (Num. 28:2; 2 Kings 5:20-27; Matt. 7:22-23; 2 Cor. 4:5). Wow, we can preach the gospel or teach the truth, but we do this in ourselves, by ourselves, and for ourselves, and even this is a sin.

We may serve the Lord, we may serve zealously and with all our heart, but our service may not be in our spirit but in the self, for we want others to see us and appreciate us. Oh Lord!

The self is so subtle, so pernicious, and so evil; we need the Lord’s shining in this matter. As we meet with the saints in the church life and do things with them, share in the meetings, and serve in different ways, we may do it in ourselves, for ourselves, and by ourselves, and therefore we sin.

We may share something in the meeting, but our hidden intention may not be that the saints may receive the life supply but rather that we may be appreciated and get a lot of Amens from the saints.

We may offer a spiritual prayer but our aim in doing so may be not for the Lord to gain the glory but for the saints’ Amen. Oh Lord!

Even in our serving the Lord, doing things for the Lord, and sharing in the meeting, there may be a struggle with God.

The Lord Jesus spoke extensively concerning this in Matthew 6:1-6 where He said that doing our righteous deeds, such as giving alms, praying, and fasting, for ourselves to express and display ourselves, is sin. Wow.

Doing good things and righteous deeds, even praying, fasting, and giving alms, all of which seem to be so good and spiritual, if they are for ourselves to express and display ourselves, all these are sin. Oh Lord!

When we pray, do we want others to see us and appreciate us, or do we really seek to touch the Lord and be one with Him? When we help others or give something to others, do we do it in spirit, one with the Lord, or do we seek some appreciation, praise, and glory from others?

We do not know the hidden intention of our heart, the subtle purpose of our self, in doing good things, righteous things, and even spiritual things; if the self is expressed, if we do things in and for the self, we sin.

We truly need the Lord’s shining in this respect; this is not for our self-analysis or introspection but for us to bring to the Lord in prayer, opening to Him and telling Him,

Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to Your shining. Thank You for creating us in the image of God and according to His likeness for the purpose of expressing and representing God. Amen, Lord, we want to live a life for the fulfilment of Your purpose. We want to express You and represent You today. Keep us in our spirit. May our living, our speaking, and our working be not for ourselves or in ourselves but for God and in God! Shine on us, dear Lord, and show us how much we still live in the self and for the self. Shine on our serving the Lord; save us from serving the Lord for ourselves. Save us from preaching ourselves; may we deny the self and be one with You to preach Christ as the gospel and ourselves as slaves to the saints for the Lord’s sake. Amen, Lord, what about our righteous deeds, our praying, our fasting, and our helping others? May we do all things in You, for You, and in oneness with You. Save us from loving others for ourselves. Save us from raising our children for ourselves or for our future. Shine on us, Lord, and expose our living in sin. Save us from doing anything for our pride, for our name, for our promotion, for our benefit, or for our interest.

The Lord uses our Failures to Expose the Self and our Sinful Nature, Causing us to Forsake All that is from the Self and Completely Depend on God

Thank the Lord for His mercy on us as He shines on us to expose the self and our sinful nature. It is truly His mercy that we can see how horrible, how ugly, and how abominable we are in the self.

The Lord is faithful to use our failures to expose the self and our sinful nature.

He shows us who we are, what we are, and what we do in the self, and we realise that we are just sin; we are a constitution of sin, and everything that comes out from us when we live apart from Christ is just sin. Oh Lord!

When we see this, when we realise how horrible, ugly, and abominable we are, we will simply forsake all that is from the self and we will completely depend on God (Psa. 51; Luke 22:31-32; Rom. 8:28).

We will be like the Psalmist in Psalm 51, asking God to be gracious to God and blot out our transgressions. We need His washing and cleansing from our sins and iniquities.

We realise that we have sinned against God and God alone, and we have done what is evil in His sight, and He is righteous to judge us.

We were brought forth in iniquity, and in sin our mother conceived us, but the Lord has come into us, even in our inward parts, to live in us and be our life.

As the Lord shines on us and exposes the self and our sinful nature, mainly by means of our failures, we will repent before the Lord, we will give ourselves to Him, and we will forsake all that is from the self and completely depend on God.

We will ask Him to create a clean heart in us and renew a steadfast spirit within us. We will desire and yearn for His presence, and we will treasure His Spirit of holiness in us.

We will ask the Lord not to cast us from His presence but rather, restore to us the gladness of His salvation and sustain us with a willing spirit.

The Lord exposes the self and our sinful nature, and we simply repent; we will be broken and with a contrite heart, and the Lord will be our portion, for He will come in to do everything in us and through us.

Thank the Lord that He knows what we go through. He told Peter that Satan had asked to sift them as wheat, but the Lord had made a petition concerning them so that their faith would not fail.

Brothers and sisters, even though we see how sinful we are in our very nature, under the Lord’s shining, the Lord still intercedes for us to turn to Him, enjoy Him, and completely depend on God.

God is sovereign in all things, for He uses all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose (Rom. 8:28).

We love God. We are called according to His purpose. We give ourselves to Him. We want to be one with Him. Yet we fail. We sin.

The Lord exposes us through our failures. He shows us how horrible, ugly, and abominable we are in ourselves, and we forsake all that is from the self and completely depend on God.

We take Christ as our sin offering for our sinful nature; this is very deep.

First, we take Him as our burnt offering, for we are not absolute for God but Christ is, and we lay our hands on Him to be one with Him.

The more we love the Lord, the more we enjoy Him, the more we realise how evil we are; like Paul, we realise that there’s nothing good that dwells in us, that is, in the flesh and the self (Rom. 7:18).

So we give ourselves to the Lord, we forsake all that is from the self, and we completely depend on God.

Lord Jesus, we really love You! We give ourselves to You. Thank You for Your mercy on us. Thank You for Your shining on us. Be gracious to us, Lord, according to Your lovingkindness, and blot out our transgressions. Wash us thoroughly from our iniquity and cleanse us from our sins. Oh Lord, we know our transgressions, for You are faithful to shine on us and expose our sinful nature. We have sinned against You, and we have done what is evil in Your sight, for we live in the self and for the self. We come to You, Lord, and we apply Your precious blood; cleanse us and wash us from our sins. Create in us a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within us. We love to be here, in Your presence, having the Spirit of Your holiness indwell us. Amen, Lord, thank You for Your sovereignty in all things. Thank You for using our failures to show us how horrible, ugly, and abominable we are. We hate the self, Lord, and we hate our sinful nature. We forsake all that is from the self, and we come to You to completely depend on You! We take You as our sin offering and as our burnt offering today!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by the brother Ricky Acosta on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of Leviticus, pp. 184-186, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 35, The Fellowship of the Eternal Life— the Reality of Living in the Body of Christ – day 5.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – Remove my covering, Lord, / That I may see Thy light, / And be deceived no more, / But all things see aright. / Oh, may Thy living light, Lord, / Scatter all my night, Lord, / And everything make bright, Lord, / For this I pray to Thee. (Hymns #426 stanza 1 and chorus)
  – Many times I fall and rise, / Oft resolve, and often fail; / Craving vict’ry, I retreat, / And my sad defeat bewail. / Truly I am sold to sin / And completely powerless; / There’s no good within my flesh, / All is dark and sinfulness. / Now I know myself in part, / And confess my helplessness; / All my temperament is odd, / All my life corrupted is. / Subtle self I cannot trust, / Nor to fleshly strength can cling; / All my trust and all my hope / Is in Jesus Christ my King. (Hymns #412 stazas 2-3)
  – I am sinful, I am helpless, / Humbly at Thy feet I bow; / Full of problems, I am hopeless, / Oh, dear Savior, save me now! / Save me now! save me now! / Oh, dear Savior, save me now! / Save me now from all my problems, / Oh, dear Savior, save me now! (Hymns #1055)