How have we become a generation of Christians more concerned with ourselves than for others? There is a distinct lack of compassion to be witnessed, and it seems that a lot that we do, though supposedly done in the name of Christ, is highly motivated by a legalistic self-righteousness instead of love. Even in our preaching of the Gospel, which comes off more as a "well, I do it because I'm supposed to" or an assertion of our own holiness. Something bred from an idea of "you should be like me because I'm so good and have it together" as opposed to being motivated by a deep and genuine care for the well-being of our neighbor, realizing that we were once as they are and sharing what we have in Christ, so that they may experience something truly wonderful as well.
Not to mention, so many of our aims and goals are so self-motivated. We look to move forward in our career to gain security and to "do what we love" or what we're good at, but rarely is our number one aim in all that we do actually what Jesus commissioned us to do - make disciples of all the nations.
Which is why there is such a huge discord between the early church and the present day church, and I believe the root of the problem lies in the our selfishness. We are willing to actually give very little up in service to Jesus. Not our pride, definitely not our money, certainly not our dreams and security. We do not view the Gospel as the single most important thing, despite of what we may claim. We are happy to accept it for our own salvation, yet it stops there with us because we do not give everything we have to then further the spreading of the Gospel. Heck, we put more effort into making sure our hair looks nice in the morning than sharing the Gospel.
We are not eternally-minded or as compassionate as we should be, because it we were, every single second of our days would be dedicated to making sure everyone can know the love of God forever and ever.
We live a comfortable Christianity, and this faith was never meant to be comfortable. Let us instead strive to live out a radical Christianity, which is actually just Christianity at its natural state. Let us realize that the world we live in now is temporary, and everything we build in it will one day disappear unless it is built on the foundation of God. Let us stop pouring everything into what will mean nothing when we die, but start building up for what will carry over into the afterlife. When we stand before the throne, how far we made it in our career or how much money we saved or if we kept in tune with current fashion or even if our love life was successful will absolutely not matter, but rather what we did to further the kingdom of God.
My prayer is that our church can start to look like it did in the book of Acts. That our discipleship will look like it did in the Gospels. That we use all we have not for ourselves, but for our God.
If we struck out every bit of self-seeking out of our lives, we'd have something revolutionary on our hands. You can say that sometimes we have to look out for ourselves, but that's not true. God is looking out for us in a much better capacity than we could ever look out for ourselves. So let us entrust ourselves to Him, wholly - not just for a well-being, but by using all that we have to live out in service to Him. Taking advantage of every day, every opportunity, every resource to use for His greater purpose, not our own smaller ones.
We are called to follow Jesus, after all. Not just to take in His words, but to imitate His life. Examine His motives, His aims, His actions and know that His life was truly not lived for Himself. And so our lives should be lived out the same. God's agenda ultimately benefits us. Likewise, our agendas should benefit others.
The amazing thing, when we truly do live a life of selfless surrender, we are blessed with the greatest joy. The more we lose of ourselves, the more we gain of God, so ironically in our selflessness, we end up gaining so much for ourselves.
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