Galatians 5:16
If you are guided by the Spirit, you won't obey your selfish desires.
Scripture taken from the Contemporary English Version © 1991,1992, 1995 by American Bible Society, Used by Permission.
Dictionary.com defines the word “selfish” as… “devoted to or caring only for oneself; concerned primarily with one's own interests, benefits, welfare, etc., regardless of others.” My “daily humor” calendar quote for today was… “What do you get from a pampered cow? Spoiled milk!” Selfish people are often spoiled… and rotten in more ways than one!
Let’s be perfectly frank here… true Disciples of Christ do not have time to be selfish. At the same time, Satan has all the time in the world to try to con us into doing exactly this! He will tell us that it’s okay to think about ourselves for once. He will remind us that we deserve to be happy, pampered, at the top of the heap, given special treatment… or to do as we please, regardless of how it affects others. He will make whatever is tempting us so alluring and enticing that we will feel like we simply have to have it!
If you think for one minute that the devil doesn’t have a lot of power, you are sadly mistaken! And if you think that digging into the Word of God, cloaking yourself in prayer and growing closer to the Holy Spirit will make him go away, you are in for a rude awakening. As long as you are selfish and spoiled, the devil doesn’t really care… he’s got you right where he wants you. But start listening for God’s voice… start letting the Holy Spirit guide your heart… and your real challenges have just begun?
So why bother? Why not just be selfish and get what we want (or what we think we want), and forget about having to deal with all the mess that Satan will try to make of our lives if we stand up to him? Because Satan is no match for the power of the Holy Spirit. As we grow in faith and learn to live by the Holy Spirit… to walk the path that He shows us… we grow stronger in our ability to stand up to Satan’s challenges. We learn to lean more on God and less on ourselves… and we actually find that our desires become more like His and less selfish. And that… as they say… is where the magic happens!
One of the biggest and most selfish desires we have is to say whatever is on our mind as soon as we think it. In many ways, death and life are in the power of the tongue. We have the power to speak great joy into the lives of others… or great pain. And which do you think the devil prefers? By learning to listen to the Holy Spirit… by operating in His desires instead of ours… we learn to control our mouth… and all other actions and behaviors begin to change, as well.
Controlling our tongue is a very hard thing. Checking our words… stopping to think about what we say before we say it…does not come naturally for most of us. The only way we have any chance of accomplishing this is by allowing the Holy Spirit to guide us… by giving our selfish desires over to Him and working to fulfill His desires instead. The first step is to want to walk in the Holy Spirit… to choose to surrender selfish desires. Once we determine to do this, we are in the right mindset to ask God to help us accomplish it.
If we could begin to operate in the desires of the Holy Spirit… if we could begin to control the words we speak and make sure they are pleasing to Him… we could see great changes in our own lives and the lives of others. We could start to surrender our selfish desires in all areas of life for good. We would still be pampered… but when God does the pampering, the results are never spoiled. Isn’t it time we changed directions and began seeking the desires of the King of Kings… the One who can truly give us the deepest desires of His heart… and ours? Are you ready to go from “spoiled rotten” to “royally blessed”?
©2012 Debbie Robus
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