Loving the PoorSample

Spiritualized Selfishness

Marriage is not about what your spouse can do for you but about what you can do for your spouse. As a church member, you see ways that you can bless and serve others. In your workplace, walk the extra mile without expecting anything in return. Most importantly, in your relationship with God, you read His Word to know how you can live your life purposefully and in a way that is pleasing to Him. God blesses you. He gives you so much in this life on earth. 

But spiritualized selfishness is, “I’m giving so I can be getting. I’m going to give to the Lord, so that God can bless me. I’m going to give in this way, so I can get something that way.” Spiritual selfishness can lead to manipulation in our relationships. This mentality applies to any relationship.

Living in such a way is called one-sided love. Do you know how a marriage is built? A marriage is built when you have, in your heart, one-sided love. Marriage isn’t built when each partner gives only 50%. That’s a sorry marriage, right there. A marriage is built on giving your partner 100%. The man and the woman give 100%. There are going to be moments that you do not feel the love coming back to you in marriage. Men may experience moments where they do not feel respected. The same is true with parenting. Parenting is a blessing, but it is also a one-sided love sometimes. Have you ever walked up to your kid and said, “Hey, I’m running a little short, could you give me $20 bucks to go out to eat with friends?” No! You are the ATM in the relationship. I know parenting is great and a blessing, but it can be a bit frustrating as well. Your children will never give you as much as you give them. That is how parenting works, yet it is still a blessing. 

Jesus wants to break this mindset of one-sided love and to break the spiritual selfishness of believing that giving has to be reciprocal. During Hurricane Harvey, many people went to help those whose houses flooded. It was messy, hard work. No one ever said, “Hey, we are so glad to be here to clean out your house. But since our house didn’t have any water damage, if you wouldn’t mind, we expect you to come to our house too, because we’re going to do some clean-up and renovations and things like that, too.” You’d never say that, right? That’d be a terrible thing to say. 

Jesus wants you to love without expecting anything in return. Do you think you can begin to practice giving of yourself without expecting anything back? Allow Jesus to break selfish expectations. Let Him transform your mind and heart.