A few weeks ago, I wrote a post and included a portion about how we need to learn to love ourselves, but that there’s a portion of Scripture (Philippians 2:3) that says to think of others as better than yourself. The way this particular verse was taught to me—and the way I’ve been living it out for years—is, frankly, wrong. To an extent, and we’re going to take a deep look at that today, along with what it means to be others-focused.
I’ve been doing a lot of reading recently. (Shocker, I know! Me, read?) Anyway, this reading has been a lot of non-fiction, and a lot of it on spiritual growth and development. If you have never read Tim Keller’s Forgive: Why Should I and How Can I? I highly recommend it! It’s changing the way I see a lot of things, not the least of which is forcing me to re-evaluate how I’ve allowed others to interpret the Bible for me rather than reading it for myself.
For instance, that Bible verse above. If I take the whole opening of chapter 2 of Philippians, what it actually says is:
Therefore if there is any encouragement and comfort in Christ [as there certainly is in abundance], if there is any consolation of love, if there is any fellowship [that we share] in the Spirit, if [there is] any [great depth of] affection and compassion, make my joy complete by being of the same mind, having the same love [toward one another], knit together in spirit, intent on one purpose [and living a life that reflects your faith and spreads the gospel—the good news regarding salvation through faith in Christ]. Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit [through factional motives, or strife], but with [an attitude of] humility [being neither arrogant nor self-righteous], regard others as more important than yourselves. Do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others (vv. 1–4).
I could post a bunch of different versions of this portion of Scripture, but I’ll leave it at the Amplified Bible and you can look it up with your own preferred version if you would like. I like the Amplified Bible for in-depth study. (You can follow this link to learn more about that.)
What does all of that mean, though, for my post, and why am I bringing it up?
Several reasons.
As I was reading the book by Tim Keller, he brought up some really great points, one especially that I’m going to talk about here that might make you feel a bit uncomfortable and make you want to stop reading/listening, but I hope you’ll press on, because it’s worth learning.
Buckle up. Here we go.
If you are in America, you are part of a very selfish culture.
We want what we want how we want when we want (which is usually right now), and it’s usually at the expense of other people. Sure, there are some exceptions. Many mothers will do anything for their kids, at the cost of their own happiness. But what happens if Mother 1 is trying to get something for her child and it gets in the way of Mother 2? It can turn cut-throat in an instant, and Mother 2 couldn’t care less about the child of Mother 1. (Just a quick example.)
No matter how selfless we try to portray ourselves to be, we live in a society that lives to serve the self. We’ll give of our time and money and talents, but only to an extent—only until we’re no longer giving of our excess, and then we hoard everything to ourselves and hold on with claws dug in deep.
I get it. We all want to be secure in this world. We want to know that we have the funds to make it through. We want to make sure we have the energy to do our jobs or spend time with specific people. Boy do I ever get it.
But this isn’t how society began.
America used to be more community-driven, more others-focused. People watched out for their neighbors and helped one another out.
Have you ever watched the movie at Christmastime It’s a Wonderful Life? My family watches it every year. I’m thirty-three years old, and it doesn’t matter that I remember watching it at least 20 times (I don’t think I paid attention to it before I was in my teens; it was a black-and-white movie!). Every single time the citizens of Bedford Falls come to the Bailey home and pour out their love for the family with money to help them in their crisis, I cry.
The same thing happens during a similar episode of Hart of Dixie.
And that, I believe, is what the heart of the Bible passage above is about. It was always taught to me as, “Die to yourself daily and see everyone else as better than yourself. So if any one person wants something that you want, they should have it instead, because you should humble yourself and let them have it.”
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t know that anyone ever actually said those exact words to me, but the way it was taught had that implication, and I heard it over and over and over again . . . and I had no idea what else to do except to let others walk all over me because everyone else wanted the same things I wanted and the Bible told me to think of others as better than myself and to die to myself, so that must be what I was supposed to do. And it didn’t matter that no one else ever died to themselves and let me have it instead for once, because obviously I was the “better Christian” who was willing to sacrifice what I wanted for other people while they weren’t. Yeah, like that isn’t a slippery slope not filled with pride. Uh-huh.
So, if the above isn’t what was intended by the teaching, then what was?
It all comes back to the idea of community and moving away from what today’s culture tells us is the norm (i.e., a me-focused society).
If you are a Christian, then this is 100 percent for you. If you don’t believe me, go back up and read the Scripture passage again.
If you’re not a Christian, well, you don’t have a Lord and Savior filling your spirit with love and mercy, but living in community with other people sure can’t hurt.
So how does this actually work, to be in an others-focused community?
Well, if we continue in Philippians 2, we see that Jesus literally died to Himself. He gave His life on the cross so that we (sinners) could be redeemed (brought into right relationship with the Father) through His death and resurrection. Now, today, especially in the US, we don’t have to go that far.
But I do believe we still have to die to ourselves. We have to die to our sin nature—as much as possible. Living as righteously as possible and seeking relationship with God through the Holy Spirit. We also have to die to selfishness, and this means seeking the good of the community as a whole above our own ambitions.
And this is where I always got it wrong before.
My focus was always still on individuals, and that made it a competition or made it easy for resentment to fester beneath the surface, even when I was trying to be a “good Christian,” which, by the way, is impossible. You either are or are not a Christian—there is no good or bad.
Seeking the good of the community, humbling yourself for the sake of harmony within the community—this really starts to change your heart in ways you can’t anticipate. Whether or not you are a Christian, when you seek the good of the community and start looking out for the people around you rather than simply for your own selfish gain, the world starts to look a little brighter and you start to see the good in the people around you a whole lot easier, even if your life circumstances haven’t changed one iota.
There’s only so much I can say in a post here. Seriously, I encourage you to get Tim Keller’s book. Once I finish reading it, I’ll probably do a review like I’ve done on other books. There’s a link to it above at the first mention if you’re listening to this instead of reading it.
Make a change this week and take a chance on being others-focused instead of inwardly focused. You might start to like what you see. And, like me, you’ll probably start to see a lot more hope in the world around you.
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