Why are people so self-centered?

Ever asked yourself this question? About someone else of course. It's other people who are self-centered, never YOU!

The unfortunate truth is human beings by nature think of themselves first, and think of themselves often. The truth is, self-centerdness is the human auto pilot. That's who we are when we are born (been around a baby lately?) You can blame it on biology, technology, or sin. It doesn't really matter. The result is the same. The truth is I am self-centered and if you are honest you'll admit so are you. So what do you, I mean we, do about it?

First you have to decide you want to do something about it. This is a value decision. Perhaps you like being self-centered. After all in this context YOU are in the CENTER! On the other hand YOU in the center may not be working out so great for you, so you say, "Yeh, I don't want to be self-centered any more." This is a good start.

You could decide just to be more other-centered. In other words, value others more than you value yourself. Personally speaking, I find it difficult to value others more than myself. I'm just not as concerned about others as I am about ME! I don't think about others as much as a think about ME! I don't think I love others, quite as much as I love ME! I guess its cause I'm around ME so often, all the time actually. So this really doesn't work for me. It might work for you, and if it does, don't let me discourage you. Go ahead...

What does work for me is being Christ-centered. You see, I do value him more than myself, because the truth is he IS more valuable. The first reason being He is God and I'm not. Forget reasons 2-10,000. I don't really think they matter much once we establish reason #1.

Jesus once said, "You will always have the poor among you, but you will not always have me." This too is a value statement. A woman had poured a box of very expensive perfume over Jesus. One his followers, one of his closest actually, objected saying, "Why wasn't this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year's wages." Unfortunately, his motives were not exactly pure. The writer lets us in on the secret that this fellow, actually the treasurer of the group, did not say this "because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it." Putting all this drama aside, Jesus reply is still extremely interesting. He basically says, the best use for this extremely costly item is not the care of the poor but ME!!!

Now before you accuse Jesus of being self-centered, something that a person who lays down his life for the sins of the WHOLE WORLD is probably NOT guilty of. Think about this. Jesus knew who he was and his value. He IS more valuable than the poor and one of the ways we can demonstrate His value to us as believers is to care for the poor, feed the hungry, practice hospitality, and in general be other-focused. You see when you focus on Christ, you end up focusing on those He focused on- OTHERS! This does work for me. Try it! It might work for you too.