Began July 6, 2011
Subject: Selfishness
Decipher what it is

Untangle the mess of selfishness and get to the core reactor and deal with it!

Dictionary meaning: Concerned primarily with ones own self, interests, benefits, welfare regardless of others.
Interesting side note: Medical definition is being an actively replicating repetitive sequence of nucleic acid that serves no known function, selfish DNA

Now, the selfishness I am dealing with is not that easy to spot, the dictionary definition point to the obvious. The selfishness I am hunting down, comes in many disguises and wears many masks & cover ups. This is the selfishness that needs to be exposed & dealt with. Selfishness is more than seating on the seat of self, more than control & wanting your own way, & not sharing. This is the selfishness that belongs to the immature. You grow into to it and it is very hard to grow out of it, because it has weaved itself into every aspect of your being. It keeps you from growing up.

The word ‘decipher’ was given, decipher selfishness. This task means we must try to make out the meaning of selfishness and to discover it as if anything that is obscure or difficult to understand; the task is to unravel selfishness!

If you dig deep into selfishness, you will discover a treasure chest of rotting fruit, lost desires, misconceptions & ‘missing the mark’. There is a lot of regrets, and things remembered, that are best forgotten, resentments & let downs. These things end up driving you, they sit in the front seat of the car called selfishness.

Selfishness is a dangerous virus, dangerous unto death. It is a venomous snake and it is on top of the food chain. It attaches itself to a host & is relentless in its quest to take over!

Your heart is the bed where selfishness grows. Under this bed is where its roots thrive, its soil is fed by bitterness, resentments & entitlements, it is watered by greed.

Selfishness gives envy a run for its money, gives lust a leg up & its very best friend is addiction! Commitment turns off the selfish, they don’t know how to balance giving & taking!

Selfishness dresses its self up in carnal desires with materialistic designs. It looks good and has a seducing way about it; it lures you into its trap. Selfishness is neither rich nor poor. Its favorite outfit is ‘I have free will’ and its shoes ‘I have my freedom & liberty’; shoes with 6 inch heels

What does a selfish heart look like? It is a mirror of your actions. It wears a mask and plays the victim. When the mask comes off; the selfish heart shrivels up. Inside a selfish heart is the fear of losing control. Its focus is on the unpunished evil & uncompensated good, which leads to misconceptions and judgments.

A selfish heart has low self esteem; it is a characteristic displayed by a miserable person. They usually have a negative outlook; this makes it hard for community or fellowship. It is difficult to inspire or be inspiring! Selfishness appears on the scene when a person betrays there own sense of inner truth, betrays that still small voice that tries to steer them away from their own selfish ways. A selfish heart is a bad listener, they have itchy ears. It is put off by other peoples input, it is a picky eater! They are cagey at best & hard to pin down.

The selfish motto: “It’s not fair”

“Selfishness is not living as one wishes to live, it is asking others to live as one wishes to live” Oscar Wilde

Selfishness breeds lies, it is a super virus that gets into your whole system & slowly causes breakdowns on all levels. Selfishness has an insatiable appetite. It craves self satisfaction. It lies to you; telling you that need, want and must have.
Time is selfishness’s money.
A selfish heart will spend time on itself. Motivations of our heart determine the level of selfishness we will rise up to.

Results of selfishness are the loss of proportional perspective, one strains at a gnat & swallows a camel (Matt.23.24). Selfishness lives on the taste buds on the tongue.

Selfishness butts heads with respect! It holds hands with bullies. It does not know how to honor.

It is an overused, overstated word; selfishness. It has become a catch all, for all our bad behavior. Selfish, brutish, mean people are obvious and their behavior is out there for all to see.
The call is to dig deeper, and if you look behind you’ll recognize the mess selfishness has left behind, and how it has distorted the road ahead of you. You must deal with it and clean it up.

There is a fine line between, whim fulfillment and total disregard of others!

I don’t want you to get confused; you are not to become a rug mat, a selfless push over. You must learn how to rule yourselves & have a sense of well being. I am dealing with selfishness on a new level; it has turned into a super virus and is growing out of control. It no longer responds to the urges to cease.

Selfishness doesn’t circulate; it is heavy & very dense.
It will take a mighty wind to blow it.
The place where selfishness is right now has caused a major instability, spilling over to disorder.
I want you to go deep, swim deeper. Go to the place where there are no waves, just swells. Look for the upwelling of My Spirit that stirs up. In this place you will savor the rich nutrients that come from the deep waters. I am bringing a current that is primarily driven by My Spirit; it is going to blow down & up.

I used the phrase ‘get to the core reactor’ for this purpose; it is the place that contains the fuel that drives. Typically it is a place when pressurized, the substance is so heated up it reacts. Where is your selfishness core reactor? How deep it is & what kind of fuel does it need to power up your selfishness. How much pressure does it take to heat up this reactor?

A simple rule is this; respond instead of react. Be respond (sable) in stead of react (able),
While responding seems like the prudent choice, you may be wondering how speed plays into this equation. Clearly in a crisis or emergency situation it may seem that you would logically need to react or operate in a split-second decision mode.
The reality is the best crisis managers (ER doctors, emergency management officials, firefighters as some examples) actually are trained and practice a variety of scenarios precisely so they can respond rather than react. Your trials come for this purpose, to train you to respond to faith & the reality of God’s Word in your lives. Not to react as orphans, but to respond as Sons!
In other words, response (versus reaction) doesn’t mean you will be slow, just thoughtful.
Our varied reactions, whether it is a quick verbal jab; a shout of_____fill in the blank; or panic and a rush of unnecessary words come flooding out; is not the reaction, rather it is our inability to handle the disturbance that is being dealt with.
Selfishness buddies up with fear and when these two travel it creates reactors.
Recognize the choices, reacting comes from a place of thinking we have no other option! The call is to rule yourselves, pull out the selfishness that hides in your heart, pull off its mask and uncover its disguises. Ground yourselves, herein your responses will kick in; this is what it means to be sober & vigilant. Give yourself quick mental breaks, discipline yourselves.
Deal with it deeply, just don’t give more in the offering or share your meal with somebody that is putting a band aide on your selfish heart. Go to the core reactor & deal with it. Don’t wait until it is to late and tsunami hits and destroys you completely.