1.25.11

Matthew 12:24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross and follow me."

My Thoughts

This really stuck in my head "You must turn from your selfish ways."  We are so taught to be selfish... commercials tell us that we need to have, have, have and it works we want, want, want.... we think we need to keep up with the Joneses...that we NEED to have all the new gadgets, clothes, cars and toys.. that for a priceless moment we can overspend on ourselves.   Lately I have been watching all the old 50's and 60's TV shows, Andy Griffith, Bonanza... even that short time ago TV was teaching about giving to and doing for others, choosing to do the right thing even if you had to give up something in the process. Now we are taught to get the biggest things even if we hurt ourselves and our bank accounts  in the process.  How can we do for others if we are so busy doing for ourselves that there is nothing left over to give. We have become so selfish that we go in debt for unnecessary things. We go in debt for totally selfish reasons.  We go into dept so others can see how great we are because we have so much. How can we help somebody in need when are having trouble paying for our own "priceless" moments.  When we think we need something our thought should be "If I do this will that leave me room to do for others?" instead of "Oh, John Smith sure is going to think I am somebody now!"... How would our lives change if  when did things that our thoughts were "Oh Jesus sure is going to be proud of me now!"  We need to spend our time getting God's attention instead of getting peoples attention.  We need to learn that a truly "priceless" moment comes out of a truly unselfish act.  We need to teach our children that giving is more important than having.  Selfish has become so much a part of life that we are totally unaware that we are being selfish and that is really scary... how can we fix something that we don't even see as wrong.  The first step is to be aware of our thought and our actions, to seek wisdom found in God's word and move forward from there.  Our goal should be to be like Jesus...not "He who has the most toys wins."