Everyone who stops to think for a moment will realise that the root of all the world’s trouble lies in the selfishness of men and women. If only we could rid the world of selfishness we should have a new and better world. The trouble is that each of us can see very clearly the selfishness in other people yet few of us can see it in our own lives. Yet if the world is to be rid of selfishness, each of us will have to cast the evil out of our own lives. We are all selfish until the spirit of Christ comes in and makes us unselfish. How then can we detect selfishness in ourselves? We can see it in our desire to have people think well of us, in our assertiveness, our argumentativeness, our desire to manage other people’s lives for them, our fussiness, our snobbishness, our jealousy, our indifference to the needs or the convenience of others, our social or intellectual pride, our self-indulgence, our self-pity, our craving for sympathy, our censoriousness, our superiority, etc… Whenever we find any one of these possessing our mind we realise that selfishness is in control. The only way to overcome self is not to be constantly trying to cut out this or that or the other expression of selfishness, but to give up our right to ourselves to Christ. When we die to self in this way we enter into the fullness of life! “He that loseth his life for My sake shall save it,” said Jesus. Whenever we find self-asserting itself, after surrender, we must make a new surrender.
John.
