Selfish Temptations
Dave described selfish temptations as the desire to only think about ourselves. This tends to sneak up on us, and before you know it, it confronts us! Most of us don't wake up in the morning and decide that "Today is the day it's all about me; I can't wait to be selfish today."
When we look at the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, we see that selfishness is actually a killer. When they looked inward and began to focus on themselves, they were struck dead for their selfishness. Thank God He has stopped doing that, or we all would be gone.
To apply this to us, we need to see that selfishness is still a killer. It's a killer of the trust we have between friends and parents. It does nothing but hurt us and other people. There are two important things that keep us from being selfish: 1) Learning to love others like we love ourselves, and 2) Practicing generosity. Selfishness holds us back from both of these things. When we are selfish, we are not generous; and when we are generous its hard to be selfish.
When looking at the parable of the good Samaritan in Luke 10: 30-37 we see how we could be just like the good Samaritan in our schools, neighborhoods and homes. What if we went out of our way to talk to the quiet kids at school, or sit with the lonely kid at lunch? Then maybe we could even go a step further and cover their costs, just like the good Samaritan. Introduce them to our friends, become their friend. Start to look at them as you look at yourself. And eventually get to the point of Philippians 2:3-4, where we are thinking of them and giving them more honor than ourselves.
Dave concluded with a personal challenge for the students to look for some practical ways that they can focus on helping others.
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