Selfishness perverts the mind. Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking (demanding) others to live as one wishes to live. Give an inch, and it will take a mile. Give a little, and that selfishness will want more and more and more. It is never satisfied.
Selfishness is the greatest curse of the human race. It is the exact opposite of Christianity. Your conscience is the only measure of the honesty of your selfishness. Selfishness is the only real atheism. The only thing more important to a con artist than perfecting a con is perfecting a total lack of conscience; so it is with the selfish.
The rising sun can dispel the darkness of night, but it cannot banish the blackness of selfishness from the hearts of people. The world can go to hell as long as they get what they want. Intensely selfish people are always very decided as to what they wish. They do not waste their energies in considering the good of others. They have no feeling that any result which might flow from their actions should concern them. Rules are made to be broken, rules intrude on the sphere of their operations.
This thinking is encouraged in the world today. “You have needs – satisfy them.” This is the worldly doctrine of today. Do whatever makes you happy.
Only Christ can change these hearts. To feel much for others and little for ourselves; to restrain our selfishness and exercise our benevolent affections, constitute the perfection of human nature. Godly love is always ready to deny itself, to give, sacrifice, in full measure of sincerity and intensity. Perfect love is perfect self-forgetfulness. Hence where there is love in a home, unselfishness is the law. Each forgets self and lives for others.
Selfishness mars joy. One selfish soul can destroy the sweetness of life in any home. It is like an ugly bush in the midst of a garden of flowers. Much care needs to be taken to guard against this spirit. Selfish people are hard to love because no love comes out of them. It happens often that pride and selfishness are muddled with strength and independence. They are neither equal or similar, but rather polar opposites.
God creates us free, free to be selfish.
But there are only two choices on the shelf, pleasing God or pleasing self.
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