Interests of Others

Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.

                                                            Philippians 2:4

               When I am looking at my own interests I am constantly concerned with what is best for me. What I want to do most, what I want to eat, what I want to watch, what I want to play, the list goes on. But when I am looking to the interests of others I am concerned with what they want to do, eat, watch, play and so on. I am not just looking at myself and being selfish, but I am opening my mind up to how others feel and think. I find this to be difficult when I am making a decision. Making a certain decision about things may affect those around you. The choices you make don’t always just affect you. And personally when I am making a decision I’m not thinking about anybody else but myself and how it will affect me. But like this verse says I need to look to the interests of others. Looking at how my decision may affect them in a positive or negative way. And not being selfish with the decision I make, making sure it affects only me in a positive way. If I put my interests over the interests of others than I am not doing as God has asked to do. I’m not loving others above myself. I pray that God would show me practical ways to act this out in my life and He would embed this lesson into my head, because it is one that I need to desperately act on more often. It is not a natural act for us as humans, but by the grace and strength of the Lord we can daily make the decisions to either please our flesh and be selfish or please the Lord and put the needs and interests of others before my own. I just read a quote by C.S. Lewis yesterday that said something like The closer we get to the Lord the more we realize that all that needs to be done in our soul MUST be done by the Lord. It is nothing we can do on our own.

Application- look to the interests of my teammates today and not to my own.