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Self-centredness  is the curse of the human race since men fell. What most of us need above everything else is to get away from ourselves, to forget ourselves. But we revolve around ourselves. We are  the centre of our universe.  We are always looking at ourselves. We judge and evaluate everything in terms of us. What it means to me and what it does to me.  All our rivalries,  bitterness and jealousies come out of that. It is true of individuals and  nations alike.  In addition to this is our  selfishness.  The wanting  everything for the self. The self-centred man or woman is always selfish. Feeding this self, pandering to it, wanting it to obtain things, and wanting others not to have it. We do everything to  build up and to satisfy this horrid, terrible self, which governs us and which controls us.  All that leads, of course, to being  sensitive. We   see  insults where they are not meant, and where  inde...

A report published last year shows that the number of people around the world who die each year from taking a selfie is growing rapidly. The increase in death is being caused by people going to extreme lengths to take a selfie in order to impress other people on social media. Two months ago, 22 year old Dean Steele from Scotland was knocked by a car on a German motorway while taking a selfie. Not all selfies lead death. Some of them are about celebrating death! Funeral directors in Canada have been educating people that taking selfies over a corpse and posting it to social media is disrespectful.

I am currently thinking about a lot the challenge of Messiah Yeshua to me as his follower to die to myself. This is the biggest lesson I am learning at present. And he is bringing a number of good authors I have read in the past to mind. I recently quoted David Platt the call to "slay yourself". But here is how Paul David Tripp expresses the same challenge : "From the earliest age, our love of self shapes everything we do and say. We fight over toys, the last bowl of cereal, and who gets the bathroom first. We work to be thought of as right, to be viewed as attractive, to win the argument with a neighbor, to get the promotion. We strive to be first, best, the center, the most powerful, the best known, the most loved. We really do love us and have a wonderful plan for our own lives! We indulge our desires and do anything we can to meet our own “needs.” If we were really honest, many of us would say that we would be completely satisfied living our own lives for the sak...

In a world where everything revolves around self—protect yourself, promote yourself, preserve yourself, entertain yourself, comfort yourself, take care of yourself—Jesus said, “Slay yourself.” And that’s exactly what happened. According to the Bible and tradition, these four fishermen paid a steep price for following Jesus : Peter was crucified upside down, Andrew was crucified in Greece, James was beheaded, and John was exiled. DAVID PLATT Is it just me or is it not the case that in the Bible the more closer people were to Jesus the more literal the taking up the cross became?

Phone Booth is undoubtedly one of my favourite films of all time. Stu Shepard (Colin Farrell) is the arrogant married New York City publicist who has been cheating on his wife Kelly (Radha Mitchell) with Pam (Katie Holmes). While using a public phone booth to contact Pam, he is interrupted by a pizza delivery man, who attempts to deliver a free pizza to him, but Stu turns him away. As soon as Stu completes his call, the phone rings. Stu answers, only to discover that the caller knows him and orders him not to leave the booth. And so begins the ordeal with Stu now a virtual hostage to a sniper/caller lurking in the surrounding buildings . The film serves as a classic illustration of how cinema interacts with viewers. As the drama unfolds there’s a mixture of curiosity and mild sympathy at the rude interruption of Stu’s day. A phone call is private even in a phone booth, and yet, we can’t help but wonder whether there may be more to the story than meets the eye. And so i...

Beverly Knight closed the opening ceremony of the Paralympics with what has been dubbed the signature tune of the Paralympics. I had no idea Ms Knight is still in the singing business. And clearly going by the raving reviews she will continue to be around. One media source says her performance was so electric that "there wasn’t a dry eye to be seen as she sang the lyrics to the song and people even watching at home felt the passion in her words" . The song was Gloria Gaynor's I am what I am . Clearly not written by Gloria Gaynor but certainly musically owned and popularized by her. It opens triumphantly: I am what I am / I am my own special creation / So come take a look / Give me the hook or the ovation / It's my world that I want to have a little pride in / My world and it's not a place I have to hide in / Life's not worth a damn till you can say I am what I am The words “I am what I am” echo over ten times in the song. A bold declaration that she ...