Self-Centeredness is an All-Consuming Cancer

My wife and I both have a commercial we can’t stand: a phone commercial in which a young lady turns a grocery store in to her personal music video studio, only stopping to look in seeming contempt at a mother and her child having a discipline issue. The reason we despise the commercial so much is it is indicative of the constant state of humanity: it’s all about me, this place exists for me, everything exists for my convenience. I was thinking about this topic as I was getting ready for the day. Oddly enough, my studies went to Judges 9, in which the people who Gideon saved showed him utter contempt by destroying the majority of his family. They didn’t care what God did, they wanted God when they were stressed and hounded my the nations around them; they wanted him only for His rescue, and not His holiness. The Me centered thing has always existed, and we’re getting worse, if you can believe, in the age of Grace.

Loved ones, we were hand-crafted in the image of the invisible God. We alone of all creations bear that mark. However, apart from rogue angels, we rebel against the blessing we’d been given! We take the blessings of God and throw them in His face! Marriages nowadays are treated as one who foes shopping for shoes, take it off when it feels worn down and uncomfortable. The blessing and command of “be fruitful and multiply” we treat with contempt, and whole nations now have population crises. God desires our Holiness so that He might bless us, and we instead worship the blessing and wonder why when we get His just wrath. We are only right as we are in God’s will, and we only can be in God’s will if we’re in obedience to Him. We are drawn to sin, because we are born in to sin (despite what progressive lies have infiltrated many pulpits). So we cannot save ourselves! Our only hope, then is surrender to Jesus Christ, to die to ourselves and be born again in Him. When we give up our self, we gain Him, and our love for God and all others increases as we seek Him out. When life becomes about Him and loving our neighbor as ourselves, we find purpose, meaning, and, indeed, fulfillment. We’re only at our best when we’re not focused on ourselves, and, especially, when our lives are about loving God with all of our heart, mind and soul, and loving our neighbor as ourselves.

2 Timothy 3

But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions, always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so these men also oppose the truth, men corrupted in mind and disqualified regarding the faith. But they will not get very far, for their folly will be plain to all, as was that of those two men.

You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Romans 12

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function, so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another. Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.

Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.” To the contrary, “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.