“Our Daily Bread”     http://odb.org/

The Daily Devotions of Greg Laurie                                  

http://www.harvest.org/devotional/daily-devotions/home.ht 

“Homily Grits Devotional”   http://www.homilygrits.com/ 

Read James 3:15-17,
Isaiah 32:5-8
Feb 10

                “Spiritual Selfishness”

“Then he said to the crowd, “If any of you wants to be my follower, you must put aside your selfish ambition, shoulder your cross daily, and follow me.” Luke 9:23 NLT

Pockets of self centeredness often remain in many areas of our lives even after we have received Jesus Christ as our Savior, and as the Holy Spirit begins the on going process of conforming us into the image of Christ.

We must constantly guard our hearts, knowing that they are deceitful.  The great deceiver  uses denial, rationalization, and self centeredness to deceive us and make us double minded, and to mask our selfishness.

We can be spiritually selfish in the giving of our time, talents, or treasures to God for His glory and His purposes.

We are often spiritually selfish in our love failing to realize that God loves everyone and we are called to love and bless everyone, even those who don’t love us and those who despitefully use us.

Prayer is the area of life where we are probably the most spiritually selfish of all.   We usually spend a lot more time in praying for our needs than for the needs of others and many times lack the spiritual wisdom and discernment to pray and really mean for the Lord’s will to be done in total faith in the sovereignty and goodness of God.

None of us would have any future or blessed assurance at all if Jesus had been spiritually selfish. He remained anchored in the center of His Father’s will through  torture, persecution, temptation, and even death. 

It is only when we totally surrender control of our lives to the Holy Spirit that we can ever hope to overcome spiritual selfishness.

Father, through  the power of the Holy Spirit living within me help me to avoid spiritual selfishness in every area of my life.  In Jesus’ name.  Amen

Written by Robert VanHoose – “Homily Grits Devotional”