O Lord, Give Me an Unselfish Heart

Dear Sisters,

The Lord has laid on my heart to share with you how He has been working in my heart recently. I feel quite incapable of writing this, but I trust that the Lord will give me all the words to write. He is so good, and so very faithful. I feel so unworthy at times of His love. May through my testimony your heart be blessed and the Lord be glorified….

The Lord began to speak to me, and unveiled my eyes to something in my life that I didn’t realize was there and that He didn’t want there. Something that didn’t at all reflect the glorious, holy God that I so desired to serve and to be like. I came to the painful reality that I held selfish motives and was being quite selfish at times. In my own round-about way, I was often thinking of my own comforts, my own desires, and wanting to do things my own way. I was being selfish toward my own dear family. (Yet, being unselfish towards others outside my family! In parallel to James 3:10-12, “this cannot be.”) This grieved my heart, and the Lord’s too. How could I have been so blinded? I love my family so very much. But the Lord showed me that true love is not selfish, at all. For love “seeketh not her own.”* (1 Corinthians 13:5) “Sincere love is love wholly free from self-interest.”*

Jesus was our greatest Example of one who lived a perfectly selfless life. Christ never thought of His own needs and own comforts, but always of others’. The very reason He came to earth was to lay down His life for us—filthy, sinful us who didn’t even care for Him—and that was the supreme display of true unselfishness. It was from His great love that His selflessness flowed. I realized that if I loved as Jesus loved, it would leave no room for selfishness, not even in the smallest form.

Upon looking up the word selfish in the dictionary, it made me think even more. Selfish is defined as, “regarding one’s own comfort, advantage, etc. in disregard, or at the expense, of that of others.”

That stung. I wanted to say that I really wasn’t that selfish. But when the Lord speaks, He always speaks truth. And to God, selfishness is selfishness, no matter how great or little it may seem. All selfishness is wrong. Perhaps my selfishness wasn’t outright seen by others, but it was there in my heart none the less. And God desired to remove that from me.

How thankful, ever so thankful I am that the Lord opened my blinded eyes! When one truly seeks the Lord, He is faithful to reveal any areas in their lives that isn’t pleasing unto Him. My desire is to be more like Christ. And if Christ was in no way selfish, then I must not be selfish in any way either. For Christian means “Christ-like,” and any form of selfishness would definitely not be Christ-like! As Colossians 1:10 says, I am to “walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”

I have found that the more I seek the Lord and desire His perfect way, the more my selfishness melts away. If my focus is fully on Jesus, and how I may serve, obey, and please Him more, then being selfless will come naturally. There is no way that one can be selfish and have their eyes fully on Jesus. It’s like trying to serve two masters (Matthew 6:24), and that does not work! I can only serve one or the other—the Lord or myself.

Satan is so deceitful and sly in his ways, and tries in any way he can to lure me and get me to fail, especially since he knows that I mean business and want to obey the Lord no matter what. The devil tries so very hard at times to get me discouraged—he wants me to fall (1 Peter 5:8). But when he flings at me his fiery darts, and tempts me sore to think of my own desires, or to want to do things my own way, I run to Jesus for strength. His Word promises, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it.”* (1 Corinthians 10:13) He supplies all the grace and strength I need! Praise Him!

And He can give you, too, all the grace and strength to overcome whatever He may be dealing with in your heart. God is a God of love, and compassion, and is ever ready to help us, if only we will accept it. He gives us a choice. In 2 Corinthians 9:8 it says, And God is able to make all grace abound toward you; that ye, always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work. () God is here to help us in our weaknesses, to make us strong, and to completely change our hearts. Praise Him! He is “able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that worketh in us.”* (Ephesians 3:20)

Oh, dear sisters, may we always keep our hearts tender and in tune with the Holy Spirit so that we can hear His still small voice when He speaks to us. Only in His blessed will can we find true peace, joy, and contentment. Let us “grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. To Him be the glory both now, and for ever. Amen.”* (2 Peter 3:18)

By God’s unfailing grace,
A sister in Christ