Justin Hale

The concept of being 'selfless' doesn't actually come from the Bible. The Bible teaches us to 'love all others exactly as we love ourselves.'

If we become 'selfless,' we have no identity or ongoing love for ourselves and we can no longer love anyone else 'equally.' The confusion over this comes from commands of Christ like this one:

"Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." (Matthew 16:24). 

The 'secular' world is trying to advance its 'universal tolerance' agenda, so they 'twist' this verse and others like it to mean, 'lose yourself, lose your own identity, deny your own individual value for the greater benefit of all others.' 

This is what the Bible ACTUALLY says,

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus." (Philippians 2:3-5).

So in order to treat one another as 'perfect equals,' we need to have an 'attitude' of humility that actually sees ourselves as 'inferior' and others as 'superior' to ourselves. They aren't truly 'superior' and we aren't truly 'inferior,' but the Bible is telling us that this is the 'attitude' we must maintain in order to reveal the truth of our perfect equality.

Why?

When we 'try' to attain equality, we end up igniting 'culture wars' over ethnicity, race, birth class, gender, education level and other 'superficial' things which no longer 'define' us, (Galatians 3:28, Colossians 3:11).

This is the 'old self' that we 'deny' in order to 'follow Christ.' Interestingly, this same 'denial' is the type of denial demonstrated by the apostle Peter. He made this declaration out of fear when he swore and cursed out loud three times that he 'did not even know Jesus' and was 'not His follower.' The Holy Spirit uses the same Greek word to describe us 'denying' our former self.

If this is what you mean by 'selfless' I still don't like the word itself because of what it implies, but I could be persuaded to accept it as a 'Christian' term when applied ONLY to this specific message and command delivered to us by Christ.

Outside of this command, Satan will only exploit the idea to 'guilt' you into becoming the world's punching bag so he can 'disempower' Christians and empower his own followers through a separate campaign of 'social justice for just us' pitting everyone against each other based on an endless array of shifting and superficial traits with revolving 'definitions' based on whatever ignites and excites people the most to join in the hate or 'fight for our rights.' 

Without the 'selfless' standing down and doing nothing about this, evil would have no chance at all to spark these 'culture wars.' 

Don't let that 'non-person' be you.

February 13 2023 • 0 responses • Vote Up • Share • Report