The essence of life can be reduced to one word: give. The Lord Jesus reduced all the commandments to only two: “You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind […] You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:37,39). To love God above ALL things is to give yourself wholly to your Creator. To love your neighbour as yourself is to give yourself to someone without expecting anything in exchange, out of love and obedience to God.

This is not an easy task for any human being. But to the selfish, this is practically impossible. The selfish one sees himself as the centre of all things; he believes that everything and everyone exist because of him, and for him.

The world revolves around the appetite of the selfish, and this, obviously, limits his vision to only a few inches away from him. And so the selfish becomes his own god. He is self-centred and unable to grasp that God is Sovereign, the Creator of all things, simply because he doesn’t think that there is anything or anyone above himself who is relevant to the world.

One of the most common mottos of the selfish is: “Whatever it takes, all that matters is to be happy!” In other words, it doesn’t make any difference if his happiness means the sadness or unhappiness of someone else. The happiness of a selfish person dwells in the soul, not in the spirit, which is why the Law and the Commandments of God have no effect in restraining the lusts of his flesh.

We can find many examples of selfish people in politics. When they are elected and receive power, a voice inside of them prompts them, saying, “Now, no one can stop me! Damn the people.” Unfortunately, this is the profile of many other people—the corrupt, the dishonest, the unfaithful, the traitor, the criminal, etc, regardless of their social status.

Sharing, giving, surrendering, sacrificing and protecting are verbs that selfish people never practise. The Spirit of God warns us about them: “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: for men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God” (2 Timothy 3:1-4).