How our desires, deep down, destroy or change us …

At the core of who we are is selfishness.

That is what brought about the ruin of the first human beings, Adam and Eve, who had the remarkable pleasure of literally walking with God in a paradise setting each day.

You would think it couldn’t get better than that — everything was perfect!

But when presented with another possibility — albeit a lie — deep down Eve desired something more, something she believed was even better. Adam believed going along with Eve would be better than going along with God.

Yes, we really do lie to ourselves as a matter of practice. That’s because practicing self-deception is our means of enabling the selfishness from which we prefer to govern ourselves. It’s like the story Jerry Lambert tells about a school teacher who lost her life savings in a business scheme that had been elaborately explained by a swindler. When her investment disappeared and her dream was shattered, she went to the Better Business Bureau.

“Why on earth didn’t you come to us first?” the official asked. “Didn’t you know about the Better Business Bureau?”

“Oh, yes,” said the lady sadly. “I’ve always known about you. But I didn’t come because I was afraid you’d tell me not to do it.”

We want to do what WE want to do, and we don’t want things like facts or truth to get in the way. I see this destructive reality lived out in people who come for counseling …

… Our relationships fail not because we “grow apart” (that isn’t “growth”!), but because we’re willing to lose someone rather than not get what we want …

… We know we shouldn’t eat junk but it tastes good; and we know we should exercise but truth be told, sitting (or laying) on the couch watching television feels pretty good; so we literally let those “good feelings” wreck our personal fitness and even ruin our health …

… and even though we’ve heard the warnings about sin, the sins we choose feel really good (at least for a while), so we’re willing to take a chance of an eternity in hell just to behave the way we want …

… all because it feels good, and because it’s what we want.

Pastor Tim White of First Baptist Church in Eula-Clyde, Texas, speaks to the problem of wanting what we want in this story from his childhood …

When I was a boy, my family played a wishing game. My dad would ask me and my siblings if given one wish, what would it be? Every time my brother or one of my sisters thought of a better wish than mine, I would change my wish to match theirs. Then one day my dad unplugged all the fun by coming up with what we determined to be the greatest wish ever. He said, “I wish that every wish that I wish would come true.”

The unending wish! One wish that grants all other wishes! That would be the greatest wish of all!

Through the years, however, I have contemplated how tragic being granted such a wish could have been. For instance, my fifth grade teacher would have exploded right in front of the whole class! The school bully would have come upon a tragic end to teach all other bullies a lesson. I would have been a murderer … a rich, greedy, spoiled murderer.

No wonder James warned us, “You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions” (James 4:2-3). Somehow, without ever having met me, the Apostle James knew of the wickedness that lived in my heart.

We’re willing and fully capable of destroying ourselves (and others!) for the sake of selfishness. There is nothing we want more than what we want.

That needs to change!

Living that way can destroy our relationships, our families, our careers, our opportunities, and it can be THE thing that sends us to hell for eternity. That’s why the Bible’s stringent warning and plea is, “REPENT!”

It will take the power of God to change us because our thinking can’t just be “changed” from what we can do ourselves with some self-control and focus. That’s not enough power to result in transformation. In order to purge ourselves from selfishness, we must allow God to change the way we think so that we have the mind of Christ. The kind of person God wants us to be is reflected in these words from King David …

“I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart,” Psalm 40:8.

David is described in scripture as being a “man after God’s own heart,” and that’s because he was a man whose heart was turned toward God. We must become the same way if we are to be real disciples of Jesus …

“Then he said to the crowd, ‘If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me. If you try to hang on to your life, you will lose it. But if you give up your life for my sake, you will save it,'” Luke 9:23-24.

Notice those first words of Jesus: “If any of you WANTS to be my follower …”

We will never surrender our lives to follow Christ if we don’t WANT to, if we don’t yield both our heads and hearts and turn them toward Jesus. Once we do, He will empower and enable us — and commands us! — to cast off that self-destructive selfishness that has marred our lives to the point of spiritual death: “If any of you wants to be my follower, you MUST turn from your SELFISH ways …”

In order to be His disciples, Jesus will not allow us to be selfish, because it’s a complete contradiction. It was selfishness that originally destroyed our relationship with God, requiring that Jesus come and redeem us so that we could be reconciled to God. So the idea of remaining selfish and being reconciled to God is ridiculous — it is impossible!

“… If any of you wants to be my follower, you MUST turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me …”

If we really want to be a follower of Christ, we must come to that place where we can say like David, “I take joy in doing your will, my God …”

Are you willing to give up selfishness for Jesus?

Scotty