God is showing me what it means to truly not be self-conscious (not just thinking I don't care about what people think of me etc but even to the point where what I think of myself no longer plays a part in my life or holds me back).

The irony is that it’s me who benefits from letting go of my self-consciousness and in turn, yes that benefits others around me too. God ironically is not more pleased with me as a result, God doesn't work that way, I am the apple of His eye, His precious, holy and blessed child whether I realise I am or not. But this is the key, whilst I live in bondage through self-conscious I believe myself to be less than God made me and less than Jesus is in me.

That's why so much Christian teaching is about self-improvement, (yes its dressed up all spiritually but non-the-less a vast majority of it is about self-improvement) because our humanity (as Christians) struggles to fully accept that Jesus actually lives in us and that we are merely dead vessels, made perfect through Christ. So the reason that so many Christian ‘self-improvement’ messages can be so relevant to us all is because they are perfectly in line with that universal struggle. Just because these self-improvement messages resonate with us, doesn't mean that they are setting us free, in fact, often they help to keep us in bondage (through self-consciousness instead of Christ- consciousness).

A majority of Christian culture and teaching also causes us to assume that there is a hierarchy in God, in the kingdom and different levels in our spirituality. This begs the question... Who enables someone to go to a higher or deeper spiritual level, God or man? We know that the spiritual answer is to say God, right? (even if we hear a message about praying/fasting/evangelising/serving/giving more, having more faith, living more pure etc we still know that the spiritual answer is to say that it is God who takes us to another level in Him, and of course if it was down to our effort then we know that would be like saying that Christ died for nothing and obviously we know that's not true, clearly we need God!). So in that case, if God is the one whom we say enables us to go higher/deeper... why don't we simply accept by faith that God has already put us at the highest and deepest level in Him, its all been done already through Jesus exchanging His life with us. There is nothing more to do!

A lot of people who are imbedded in Christian teaching and legalism seem to think that that's heresy... 'Are you trying to say that God doesn't want me to go higher/deeper in Him'... 'To please Him more'... 'Love Him more'... 'Live for Him more'... 'Pray/fast/evangelise/serve/give more, have more faith, live more pure etc'... 'Surely that is heresy!!!' All I know is this... God cannot love you or me more... He already loves us more than life itself, more than any human love could ever comprehend. And God has placed us with Himself in the heavenly realms... All He wants is for us to stop 'trying' to please Him and 'trying' to go higher and deeper and just accept and receive that He has already done it all!

Yes, there is nothing more that we can do! We are merely vessels! Therefore if I embrace and feed self-consciousness I automatically become less Christ-conscious. When I step into being Christ-conscious, I believe, by faith that I am indeed all that God says that I am and, knowing that none of these things are by my effort but all by the grace of God, I cement this truth in the context of who Jesus is in me! My self-consciousness then dwindles as now my struggle (the universal one) to believe that I am good/acceptable/holy/able enough and doing/succeeding/achieving enough etc becomes irrelevant and is shown up for the complete distraction that it is (as after all it’s not about 'me' but about 'Christ in me')!

Some people would even read what I'm writing here and think that I believe that I am more holy or better than others, because I think I know more or better than them etc. I don't even believe that there is any hierarchy, I don't believe a person can ever be more holy than God has already made them, nor more spiritual than God has already made them simply through the grace given through the sacrifice of Jesus, so I'll leave it to those people to decide whether I believe myself to be more holy/better or not.