Self-sacrifice or Self-preservation…
Philippians 2:3-4 English Standard Version
3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests but also to the interests of others.
In the world today, I see a lot of focus on self-care and making sure you put yourself first. Taking care of yourself has become a top priority. To some extent, I understand this because hurting people can not always help other people. This is why the flight attendant tells you to put your oxygen mask on before you help anyone else get their mask on. If you can’t breathe, you can’t help anyone else. But what I’m talking about and if I can continue the metaphor, is that it seems the common thing is to put your oxygen mask on first, and then instead of helping someone else, you keep the other oxygen mask just in case yours runs out. This was pretty clear during Covid when toilet paper and bottled water couldn’t be found.
Honestly, this doesn’t shock me one bit about the world. However, it shocks and greatly disturbs me when I see this same mentality make its way into the lives of believers. This is a problem when you are all about taking care of yourself or making sure you get everything you need first because your focus is no longer on serving the world around you. And this is what God wants us to do.
Mark 9:35 English Standard Version
35 And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.”
When we are all about trying to take care of ourselves first it shows a lack of trust in God. He is the one who provides for all of our needs. Jesus tells us not to worry about anything in Matthew chapter 6. He tells us that if God takes care of the flowers in the fields and the birds in the air then how much more will He take care of us?
If the world around us is going to see the light of Jesus in us and see the Gospel played out in our lives. It will be because we are choosing to live a life of self-sacrifice rather than a life of self-preservation. The world will see Jesus in us when they see us living a sacrificial life just as Jesus did. He didn’t come to be served but to serve. When Jesus died on the cross He gave us everything we need; eternal security and we need to live like it. He gave us that security so that our focus could be on others and so our life doesn’t have to be built off of self-preservation. He will be the one to preserve us and provide for us. We don’t have to follow the world’s idea of self-love. We have the only love that matters. The love of Christ.
