Three Catalysts of Selfishness

Selfishness is like a catalyst that starts a chain reaction which is not usually positive. Catalysts are substances or people that set off or promote an event. Self gets in the way

1. Putting self before God. God created man for good (Gen 1:31). But Adam and Eve gave into self when they decided to eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were not content with what God had blessed them with. They wanted more.
1. 1 John 2:16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life—is not from the Father but is from the world.
2. Remember the Grey Poupon commercials? They suggested that if you rode around in a limo and ate that mustard, you were better than others. Satan is always attempting to lure us away from God with selfishness. If we follow God’s ways, we don’t need anything else to satisfy us.
3. What we have or what we don’t have does not make us who we are.

2. Putting wants before needs. When it comes time to pay the bills, hopefully you take care of the needs before the wants. There are people in this world ho have a fraction of the possessions of even poor Americans and yet they have joy because they have God.
1. Matthew 6:31-33 Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ (32) For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. (33) But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
2. John 6:27 Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.”
3. John 4:14 but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
4. Do we complain about the blessings we have so that we don’t appreciate the gifts of God?

3. Putting things before others.
1. Are we so busy collecting things that we put it above our families?
2. Man did not create God for himself. God created man for Him. Our place is to serve God, not our desires.

When we lose sight of our purpose we lose sight of our souls. Our souls are more valuable than all the world. Don’t allow selfishness come between you and your family or your God.

Ephesians 4:22-24 to put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and to be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and to put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness.