Selfishness or self indulgence is the enemy of our heart. Our heart turns to bitterness as time goes on without the presence of love in our heart that is given to us by the Holy Spirit. However, the Spirit is not going to force you to love... it can only influence. The choice is still ours as Christians. God will never violate our free will by forcing us to do what we do not desire to do.

Selfishness is the seed of hate, turning the heart to stone. Making us unable to bear fruit for God's glory and blinding us to the truth of His light.

^{Matthew 23:25}

²⁵"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. ²⁶Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

Selfishness on the other hand blacks out the heart. We become so consumed by our desires, goals, and happiness that we overlook the needs of others. We become blind to love. We become incapable of love. God does not want us to be that way but as Paul describes He wants us to be prepared for every good work. Preparation is in the sanctification of the Christian. Setting aside our own personal goals, ambitions, desires, pride, and happiness to seek out the needs of others. This is how we become ready and prepared to produce fruit for God. Sacrifice, patience, kindness, humility, weakness, and mercy are all components of God's true love.

The ironic thing is that as we spend our energy and lives on others we feel like we leave all hope of ever having any true happiness or joy in our own lives but in actuality we learn over time that this is the only way to attain happiness and true joy. You will never be happy until you decide to stop spending so much time making your life what you want it to be and instead (in humility) start to live life for other people. We are not just simply individuals but a body and a community.

^{Isaiah 42:16}

¹⁶ I will lead the blind by ways they have not known,
along unfamiliar paths I will guide them;
I will turn the darkness into light before them
and make the rough places smooth.
These are the things I will do;
I will not forsake them.

It is about community and being part of something bigger. Selfishness blinds us to this love. We aimlessly (almost unaware) don't even realize the needs of others all around us. Self indulgence white washes compassion... hardening the heart. Gradually, we may become bitter, envious, resentful, mean, depressed, anxious, and hateful of others. Sadly, for some, it becomes their life obsession to belittle others and even think of ways to scheme against others and slander them. Selflessness has a great deal to do with humility which is why it is so important.

As a matter of fact, selflessness, humility, patience, forgiveness, peace, and faith are all elements of love. They are all interconnected. They are evidence of our love or expressions of our own love for God. Hate is the opposite of all these things. Arrogance, pride, selfishness, competition, revenge,vanity, greed, and malice are all forms of hate.

Luke 17:33

33Whoever tries to keep his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life will preserve it.

We come to understand that this is the light that He is talking about sharing with others. Love is going to take some sacrifice of your time, attention, heart, money, and energy. It is changing your mind and going in a different direction. Changing your mind to stop feeding your lusts and satisfying your cravings and to turn towards living for others.

James 3:13-18

13Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show it by his good life, by deeds done in the humility that comes from wisdom. 14But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. 15Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, of the devil. 16For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice.

17But the wisdom that comes from heaven is first of all pure; then peace-loving, considerate, submissive, full of mercy and good fruit, impartial and sincere. 18Peacemakers who sow in peace raise a harvest of righteousness.

At some point selfishness and our constant desire for more of what we do not have hurts others or is against others. We should be content with the basic necessities of life and Paul mentions this in his writings. To overindulge beyond this ideal is dangerous and eventually spawns emotions like jealousy, hate, malice, pride, arrogance, survival of the fittest, independence, and at the worst point can even lead people to have thoughts of murder.

When you see the news these days, do you ever wonder how someone in the news could have killed their children or their wife or their co-workers? You do not really want to know the answer to that question because many of them (except in some extreme cases) were once just like you and me. Murder started with a small chain of events. An selfish motive. It may have (and often does) started out very innocent and seemingly harmless but what it becomes is evil at his climax. This is why Paul begs us to stay rooted and grounded in love because love is patient, kind, and compassionate.

Philippians 2:1-4

1If you have any encouragement from being united with Christ, if any comfort from his love, if any fellowship with the Spirit, if any tenderness and compassion, 2then make my joy complete by being like-minded, having the same love, being one in spirit and purpose. 3Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. 4Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

We as humans are blinded to compassion and love. This life is a time for us to make a choice concerning which camp we belong to.... love or hate. Mercy, forgiveness, love, selflessness, true happiness, patience, self control, and peace are the fruits of love or the result of love in our lives. Pain, depression, anger, rebellion, arrogance, pride, and doubt are the fruits of hate. This is the war we fight. As Paul says our battle is not with those of the flesh but of powers unseen.

Through the Holy Spirit we are given the seed of God's love but a choice still must be made. We still have free will to choose to think and dwell on ourselves all the time or to understand the bigger picture which is living for others. Selfishness blinds us to compassion. It keeps us from seeing what we need to see so we can do something about it. Satan's weapons of doubt, despair, depression, anxiety, unhappiness, and guilt are being used against us to keep us from the light. This leads to death but righteousness that is through love leads to life through Christ Jesus our lord.

Selflessness doesn't seem like the right thing to do for how can we be happy by meeting the needs and bearing the burdens of others? Seems like it would be a terrible existence but this is what Jesus did. He lived for us. He died for us. He rose again and intercedes for us. The perfect picture of selflessness. The undeniable truth is that true love is selfless which Christ shows us through His life and cross. To understand this is to understand the light. He meant for us to continue in this selfless love and to shine that light to all we come into contact with.

Matthew 6:25-34

25"Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? 26Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?

28"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. 29Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 30If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? 31So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' 32For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. 33But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. 34Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

Seek first the kingdom and His righteousness and God will take care of the rest. What is this righteousness? Selfless love.  

As I touched on over the last several posts, selfishness is the true root of sin. I one day came across the scripture that says that the love of money is the root of all types of evil. So I thought, what is the root of the love of money? Selfishness is the root of this evil as it is in all forms of evil. Selfishness is deceptive. It seems like the right thing to do. It seems harmless at first and sometimes can be but what it grows into is entirely something else.

All sin is motivated by selfishness. Eliminate selfishness and you eliminate sin. Seems simple yet we are born into this physical body with lusts and desires and many of those are necessary for our survival and furtherance of our species. God put those desires into our bodies for a reason. However, they must be kept in check and self discipline must be used to keep our desires from becoming something other than what God created them for.

Selfishness is responsible for greed, murder, malice, envy, jealousy, adultery, stealing, and anything else that does harm to the people around us. It is responsible for every war, for most deaths (outside of accidental or other natural causes), and poverty. When someone acts out selfless acts it requires sacrifice of time, money, and possibly possessions. This is the root of love. Love is sacrificial. Love is selfless. This love which is the very essence of God was seen in God's son on the cross. This is the "fruit" that Jesus speaks of. We are to produce fruit or commit our selves to acts of kindness to our fellow man. The title of this post is Blinded and that is exactly what selfishness does to us. Selfishness hardens our heart and waxes our eyes dull so that we can not see the needs of others. Selfishness kills compassion. It keeps us from caring about others because we are too focused on the cares of our own life, our own ambitions, our own lusts, our own pleasures, complaints, past failures, pride, arrogance, etc. Eventually we become void of compassion and incapable of love because we can't see past ourselves. There is no greater teaching on this subject than the verses below which Jesus spoke.

Mark 8: 34-38

34Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. 36What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? 37Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? 38If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels."