Selfishness Drives Out Perfect Love….

Being religious is when you make your convictions someone else’s burden. When we hold non-believers to our standards, it becomes a burden to them. They begin to hate us for trying to control their lives. Regardless of what you believe, the love of God will never be known when we place burdens on others due to our convictions. Practicing “being religious” guarantees one thing, the love God has for us will never be made known to others because placing burdens on people shows the love of God is absent in our life. The Pharisees didn’t have the love of God in them. There was no room. The only love they had was misdirected love of self. And that’s an oxymoron to begin with. True love is selfless, religious love is selfish; the exact opposite. If people don’t do exactly as prescribed by the ”religious”, then no love is shown. What the PC of “religiosity” doesn’t get, is they don’t have the ability to love, for selfishness leaves no room for it. God opposes the proud, or better stated, “there is no room for God in the life filled with only love for oneself”. God’s agenda is so much greater than what we “think” it is. And we can only begin to experience it when we get out of our own way, and commit to serving Him fully. We must always be aware of the pull of pride. The Bible says “perfect love drives out fear”, well this must be true too, “selfishness drives out perfect love”.

1 Jesus went into the synagogue again and noticed a man with a deformed hand. 2 Since it was the Sabbath, Jesus’ enemies watched Him closely. If He healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse Him of working on the Sabbath.3 Jesus said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” 4 Then He turned to His critics and asked, “Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?” But they wouldn’t answer Him.5 He looked around at them angrily and was deeply saddened by their hard hearts. Then He said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! 6 At once the Pharisees went away and met with the supporters of Herod to plot how to kill Jesus. Mark 3:1-6