Have you ever taken your temperature, only to find out that it was not what you thought? God desires to heal us and to set us free from the lukewarm temperature of self-love. If you want to know where your heart is at with Jesus, recognize this helpful principle:
"It is the love of self that brings unrest. When we are born from above, the same mind will be in us that was in Jesus, the mind that led Him to humble Himself that we might be saved. Then we shall not be seeking the highest place. We shall desire to sit at the feet of Jesus, and learn of Him. We shall understand that the value of our work does not consist in making a show and noise in the world, and in being active and zealous in our own strength. The value of our work is in proportion to the impartation of the Holy Spirit. Trust in God brings holier qualities of mind, so that in patience we may possess our souls." {The Desire of Ages, page 330, paragraph 4}
"But the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isaiah 57:20). This is our default condition as humans in our fallen state, and we need Christ who alone can bring us rest.
In other words, if you have a lot of unrest in your soul, this is God letting you realize HOW DEEPLY you need Jesus, who alone can remove self-love by replacing it with selfless love for God and others, which always leads us to experience a healthy sense of self-respect because we are adopted into the family of God. "When we live by faith on the Son of God, the fruits of the Spirit will be seen in our lives; not one will be missing." {The Desire of Ages, page 676, paragraph 4} If the fruits of the Spirit are not in our lives, then we are still actuated by self-love, and thus are experiencing the unrest of soul that comes from being aligned with the ideas, habits and customs that Satan spawned when in heaven he turned his eyes off the glory of God and focused instead upon self. In ourselves and in our fallen nature, we are like dead-end lakes and broken cisterns. Of ourselves, we have not love, joy, or peace. It is only in and through Christ that we are able to ever be TRULY happy.
The devil has counterfeited God's divine fruits with selfish ones that have TEMPORARY pleasure with LONG TERM SUFFERING and DEATH. Don't buy into the trap he has planned for you. While God desires to take the unique character you have and use it for His glory, the devil wants to short-circuit your capacities and talents to be devoted to self-serving, which in the short-term may SEEM to make you feel good, but will only bring guilt, shame and remorse (and finally death) in the long-term.
Let us learn of Christ today in humility, be still and know that He is God, and let Him so deeply imbue us with His Spirit that we would rather die than commit sin against the One who loved us so much that He would leave heaven to be our Brother and Savior, culminating His selfless act of love in dying for us on the cross. Now He invites you and me to let our lives culminate in the selfless act of continual surrender of our will to Him motivated by the loveliness of His character, which thus empowers us to minister to others in His selfless way! Hallelujah!!!!