Selfishness

Romans 9:23
Philippians 1:14-18

The depth of my own selfishness never ceases to astonish me. Every time I am confronted by it I wonder again at how immature I still am in certain areas of my life. Even though I know I am not alone, the selfishness is unacceptable, a vice I will need to fight against throughout the rest of my life.
.
We were made to focus on God and give Him glory in all that we do. Instead we choose time and again to focus on ourselves and our own selfish desires. How often, as just one small example, do we evaluate the time we spend in prayer by how richly we feel blessed by the end of it? The whole purpose of prayer is to give honor to God, yet we judge whether it was a "good" prayer time or not by whether we have received encouragement from Him. Could we possibly be more selfish?? And yet out of His mercy God chooses to bless us anyways during the time we set aside to honor Him. He manages to bring glory to Himself despite our selfishness working against Him, even transforming our actions motivated so wrongly into fruitful opportunities to communicate His Word to others. Paul must have recognized this, to rejoice in the spread of the Gospel while acknowledging the poor motivation of some of those spreading it.
.
Praise God that He is glorified despite my selfishness. May He continue to work in me to remove that selfishness and replace it with love: love for Him, love for His name, and love for His people.