Everyone
is a selfish beast. From the time we are born we are wicked and self-serving.
Every human craves whatever leads to personal gain, and there is no possibility
to desire anything but that which profits us individually. An honest man will
quickly concur, that is, not a man who is outwardly what the world calls
“honest,” but one who is honest with himself. He will have seen this beast
rising up. He will have noticed that you cannot escape the beast. He will
acknowledge that he is the beast. This is the problem with humans: we are
incapable of shrugging off this coat of selfishness: it is our very skin.
Now
you are angry, or perhaps you agree. Either way, once you accept the reality,
there is a much more profound depth to it that we do not at first grasp. Why am
I addressing you? Why am I singling you out, dear reader? Because I am proving
this point: even the creators of rhetorical design understood that humans do not like to be
singled out individually. It does not appeal to our pride. Is pride the same as
selfishness? Is greed? Is vanity? Perhaps not, but without selfishness, these
would not exist. Selfishness is the root of almost every foul sin we commit,
and it is not something that the human can shrug off its shoulders. Selfishness
is the Great Sin. Selfishness was the source of Lucifer’s pride; pride that
made him desire the Throne of the Most High, and become the lord of Wickedness.
So
if we the Christians have now accepted God’s grace, and we are living not for
ourselves, but for Christ, what does everything look like then? “We are not
selfish,” we now argue. Let us examine our goals. We are striving for the
Kingdom of God, to honor Him, to glorify Him, and our greatest motivation: to
live eternally with God. Ultimately, it goes back to our desires: Our desires
to seek the Kingdom of God and heap up eternal reward. We sometimes perhaps
worship out of ultimate humility, but at the end of the day we still feel deep
down that we not only worked hard for our righteousness, but that we deserve the eternity we have been
promised. But we are once again thinking selfishly. In the New Testament, James
says to put away “selfish ambition.”
I
began by suggesting that we cannot escape selfishness, and we cannot
completely: not until we arrive in a place devoid of sin where our flesh has no
say in the matter. But on earth, we can put
it off. There is a motivation to work for: our own crowns, but it is not
this that is supposed to drive us. Rather, the gospel is this: “Love your
neighbors as yourselves, and love the Lord your God.” We do not have to work
for our rewards, for whether we “earn” them or not, we all know we could never deserve them.
But
we need a motivation to do what God has commanded. We need this motivation,
because we are selfish. Given this,
we have two workable choices: look for our reward, or look for others’
wellbeing.
We
can look for a reward. We can look to heaven and say, “I’m going to do good
deeds, because I want the crowns.” We
can take scripture and say, “Hey look, Jesus says to ‘seek first the kingdom of
God,’ and in Hebrews it says that Moses was faithful, because he ‘was looking
toward the reward.’” But this can get out of hand, because selfishness is
selfishness, whether or not it is masked by what we call “good intentions.” If our goal is our eternal wellbeing, it
becomes incredibly easy to hurt others. We begin by fixating so heavily on our
reward, that our righteousness and understanding of theology becomes more
important than the lost souls who are battered by Christians’ debating amongst
themselves, and we eventually are throwing each other to the ground in an
attempt to achieve what we call “gospel clarity.” The lost can be turned away
by our very inability to demonstrate all that we argue for, and this “love” we
are so adamant about. Our self-conviction that spiritually we can see – this
knowledge that we “know” we possess – this
is what blinds us more than confusion, for our selfish pride turns even God’s
grace into something to lift up our own image. When we are our own goal, we
will accept anything that helps us achieve that, and we will trample anything
that gets in our way. It is not a given that looking to the reward, or seeking
out gospel clarity induces such behavior and hurt, but pride is always lurking
dangerously in the background when selfishness is our propeller.
Perhaps
this is not what “seek the Kingdom” really means. Jesus tells us in the New
Testament what the Kingdom of God will be like. One of the parables Jesus uses
is, “The kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on
finding one pearl of great value, went and sold
all that he had and bought it.” To those who try to live as if they are
working for the kingdom’s rewards, those people are inadvertently working for
themselves. Jesus tells us to give everything we have to the poor. He tells us
to sell our Everything so that He can take up the space. He wants us to get rid
of the “Great and Wise Us” and become
Him. Jesus came to us to teach us selflessness and humility. He died on a
ragged cross and was scourged and spit on, and though He had done nothing
wrong, He accepted the punishment because it was ours, and we were unable to
save ourselves and always will be. He showed us the greatest act of mercy and
grace possible to man, and provided us with salvation that is dependent solely
on Him, “not by works of righteousness, lest we should boast.” Jesus showed us
that love is the way to heaven, and the way to His side. But not any love; only
His. So then, if we have received grace, our motivation – our selfish ambition –
should not be selfishness, but it should be selflessness. It should be seeking
the needs of others, seeking to love as we were so loved. It should not be
“what can I do for my own reward?” but it should be “who can I reward today by
showing Christ’s love that He showed me?” And once you begin pursuing loving
others and putting them first, you may come to find that the Kingdom of God has
never been clearer to see. Perhaps seeking the Kingdom of Heaven, and looking
out for the needs of others are one in the same. Either way, compassion is more
important than spiritual passion. Righteousness is much greater than
self-righteousness. And eternity is too important for us to waste time pursuing, instead of simply living for it instead.
“And
though I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, but have no love, I am
nothing.” 1 Corinthians 13: 2a
