Selfishness

Have you realised that selfishness is at the root of every sin? Whether we seek wealth, pleasure, name or power, at the root of all of it is the desire to get something for ourselves. When we sin, we give our desires greater importance than even what God wants or the hurt it can cause others.

When Eve sinned, she ignored what God had said and directly disobeyed Him. She ignored the 'death' her act would bring to her and Adam. She made this serious mistake because she really believed, after listening to Satan, that it would be advantageous for her. "When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate" (Ge.3:6).

Sometimes people make the choice to do wrong after thinking a lot and planning and scheming to gain some advantage. But most often, we do wrong without thinking about the consequences. This was probably what Eve did. But as someone said, while we have the ability to choose our actions, we cannot control the consequences. Many people are foolishly 'optimistic' thinking 'nothing will happen'. But consequences will inevitably follow.

All of us have been selfish and have done many things for ourselves, not thinking of what God thought and how they would affect other people. When we look at things this way, there is no one who has not sinned. One difficulty that 'good' people have is to think that since they have not done any gross sins, they are not really 'sinners'. But all of us are sinners, having done many things selfishly and hurt God and man.

Now we have three aspects to look at when we seek to overcome sin and to be pleasing to God, what God thinks about it, how it will affect other people, and if it is a way of pleasing ourselves. But this simple statement has to be somewhat qualified.

We know that sometimes when we want to obey God, some people may get upset. It could be our family, society or even the church we are in. Then we cannot choose to ignore God in order to avoid offending people (Ga.1:10). But then would it not be callous of us to ignore the impact of our actions on other people and tell ourselves that we are obeying God? See how much effort Paul made to explain things to Philemon to avoid offending him, and how much trouble he took to help the Corinthians with their issues! We care for people more as we grow more godly, while we hold God as our ultimate object of worship.

Another danger is to emphasise self-denial as our highest goal, and to ignore God and people. Such people assume that every desire is selfish, and their goal is the annihilation of self. This is not only foolish, but an impossible goal.

When God created us, He has given us natural desires to enjoy life (1Ti.6:17). We have ability to feel pleasure and pain. God has placed boundaries around our desires, and we will feel and cause pain if we cross them. Our safety is to follow God's word and His Spirit.