Unfortunately, many people are caught up with that. They're caught up with themselves; and when you're caught up with yourself, let me tell you this. I have learnt this, in moving in the spirit. The one thing, that will stop you flowing in the anointing, is being preoccupied with yourself. That should teach something, shouldn't it; that the moment I think about myself, the anointing stops flowing. I've proven that over and over and over, and we teach and demonstrate how to move with the Holy Spirit. It always comes to this point: if you think about yourself, the flow of the spirit shuts down, and you have no movement of God, when you look in on yourself. There is no movement. There's no life there. Now there's times to reflect, and to consider our needs, and so on, but here's the thing. The result of being self-absorbed is, people do this: they end up with broken relationships. So you've got a generation emerging that can't form committed relationships, doesn't know what they are. They're preoccupied with getting something out of a relationship; rather than growing, and becoming someone who can build into it. There's a major problem in our society of this, and it's all around this thing: give me.
It requires a radical shift, and at the core of discipleship, and following Jesus, is a shift from: 'give me', to 'make me.' He said: Follow Me, I will make you something. There's a shift, that requires internal changes on a daily basis; so one of the things that happens when people are occupied with themselves, is they end up rejecting everyone else, because others have got no value to them. They end up absorbed in themselves, end up with all kinds of problems, it creates division in the church, it creates division in the workplace. You look in the workplace, at the cause of the problems, and most of the time it's people; it's all about me, is the thing that's going on. This creates all sorts of difficulties. You think about addictions. Why do people get so addicted into drugs? Why? It's all about me, and their pain, and what they want to feel like; and they totally, in the end, become so gripped with it, that they ignore all the hurt they're causing everyone around them. So this is the path to ruin, a path to ruin. It's rooted in pride. Look where he ends up! This should be a lesson for us.
It says in verse 15: he went, and joined himself to a citizen of that country, who sent him in the fields to feed the pigs. He ended up down with the pigs. The path of give me, give me, give me, is a slow steady path to ruin, in every aspect of your life. At some point, you've got to say: God, help me to make a shift on the inside; and you'll see that the core of discipleship, is a shift around that issue, of who's in charge. Have a look in Matthew 16 verse 21: From that time, Jesus began to show His disciples, He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things at the hands of the elders and priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised up the third day. What is Jesus doing? He's revealing His life's purpose. He's revealing: this is what the Father has planned for Me. This is the course I must run, because it's not about Me, it's about salvation of many. It's about the world. It's about salvation coming. It's about My Father's plan, it's not about Me. Therefore I will experience suffering, I will be put to death, but I will rise, and then we will accomplish what God sent Me for.
But you see Peter interrupted Him. Look what Peter did. Peter took Him - so he put his hand on Him, or even took Him aside, and he began to rebuke Him, saying: be it far from You Lord, this shall not happen to You! Now I want you to see what he did. The first thing is, he begins to rebuke Him. Now the interesting thing about the word rebuke means, it means literally to place value on someone. So what he's doing is, he's saying :listen, You are the one who's helping me be the centre of attention. We're having revivals. There's a coming kingdom, and we're going to rule in that kingdom, and if You go mess it up by dying on the cross, what will happen to me? Listen, listen to me, he said. He began to rebuke Him. If you really care about people, you will talk about things in their life; so he began to rebuke Him, and this is what he said: Be it far from me; or literally, it says: pity Yourself. What he's really saying is: now I heard what you say about suffering, and crosses and stuff. I didn't hear resurrection at all - but what I do sense is this. You need to look out for Yourself, pity Yourself, have mercy on Yourself, look after Yourself.