In the last issue of this article I shared with you our belief that Christ is living within us. Christ’s indwelling is His way of being our guide, friend and Lord. We do not have to go far to find Him or to discover His will so that we can do it; we only have to listen within for His voice. Of course if we always have the radio or television blaring or we’re always on the telephone, we can’t ever hear His voice.
Therefore, we know that Jesus lives within each of us and speaks to us all the time. We do not hear His voice as an audible experience, but rather as an inner voice comparable to the thoughts in our minds. An important part of the nature of a Christian, an important part of the new nature that Jesus give to us in Baptism, is being in constant communion with Christ within us. When we listen to Him and follow His way, we become His friends. This communication is, of course, broken off when we engage in selfish acts. All sin is a selfish act! A spirit-filled Christian life – a life of virtue and love of others – truly opens up our communication with Christ.
Selfish acts draw us back into our old selves and our false selves. When these selves rule us, our views of ourselves, the world and God become distorted and disoriented and spiritual growth becomes difficult, if not truly impossible. All the different voices within us begin to fight for a chance to be heard. There is the child’s voice, the voice of the law-giver, the practical voice; there is a guilty voice, an optimistic voice, a pessimistic voice, a fearful voice; there is the voice of the trickster, the voice of wisdom, the voice of selfishness, and the list could go on and on. All of these voices are parts of our personalities. Sometimes they function on their own as well, speaking to us when we do not ask them to do so.
When we engage in selfish acts, we remove from our midst the only master that has the only authority to take charge of them all – Christ. Only He can bring direction to the inner self. Through sin, the false self tries to assert leadership, but because that self has no real authority, it is quickly overthrown by one after another of these voices. No wonder that when we look within we often become afraid and confused, and we want to run away!
This is one of the chief effects of selfish acts in our lives: fear of self and fear of the spiritual world we can find within. The only real way, however, to spiritual growth is to LOOK WITHIN and find Christ within us.