relationships and community on Self-Interest

Lord—you not only know all things... You notice all things. You notice when we are joyful—and You laugh, too. You notice when we are in grief or despair—and you cry with us. When we are alone or confu...

Jesus, though you were in very nature God, you did not consider equality with God as something to be used to your own advantage. Rather, you humbled yourself, you made yourself nothing. Lord, you are ...

Leader: The word of the Lord to the prophet Isaiah says: You will indeed hear but never understand, and you will indeed see but never perceive. For this people's heart has grown dull, and with the...

Our Lord—Today we have given You praise and thanks for who You are and what You’ve done for us. Now, we also give You our needs—for we are not self-sufficient. We need You! We pray for those dear to u...

Leader: Arise! Shine! Christ’s Church has assembled. People: We are one body, with Christ as our head. Leader: What kind of body is this? People: The Body of Christ, brought together not by huma...

Father God–You are a God of grace and abundance, who blesses us with more than a shower of blessings but a downpour of mercies. We rejoice with friends in new marriages, and in the strength of lasting...

Selfishness is the making a man's self his own centre, the beginning and end of all he doeth.

Moralistic behavior change done for one's self simply manipulates and leverages radical selfishness without challenging it.

Selfishness and greed, individual or national, cause most of our troubles.

Selfish people pursue gain at others’ expense. But God’s riches are infinite. When you serve Him and others, you store up treasures in Heaven. This doesn’t reduce the treasures available to others. Ev...

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pa...

There is not any thing, relating to men and characters, more surprising and unaccountable, than this partiality to themselves. . . . Hence it is that many men seem perfect strangers to their own chara...

If a man is forever concerned first and foremost with his own interests then he is bound to collide with others. If for any man life is a competition…then he will always think of other human beings as...

There is nothing in this world so empty as getting what you want.

If we get our very identity, our sense of worth, from our political position, then politics is not really about, it is about us. Through our cause we are getting a self, our worth. That means we MUST ...

One thing is clear to me, that no indulgence of passion destroys the spiritual nature so much as respectable selfishness.

A man is hindered and distracted in proportion as he draws outward things to himself.

Entitlement is a hot topic today. The root word entitled means exactly what it says—to give someone a title or a right. It used to be reserved for the wealthy and the privileged, based upon economics ...

“I have been a selfish being all my life, in practice, though not in principle.”

Courtesy is only a thin veneer on the general selfishness.

Pride is a by-product of insecurity. And the more insecure a person is, the more monuments they need to build. There is a fine line between 'Thy kingdom come' and 'my kingdom come.' If...

Customs are generally unselfish. Habits are nearly always selfish.

All the good maxims which are in the world fail when applied to one's self.

Do you remember those birds in Finding Nemo? They get me every time. As they fight for what’s on the ground, they are flying around screaming, “Mine! Mine! Mine!” Never has Disney nailed a picture of ...

Many people live righteously for selfish or misguided reasons. If you are striving to please God, examine your motives today.

All men who live only according to their five senses, and seek nothing beyond the gratification of their natural appetites for pleasure and reputation and power, cut themselves off from that charity w...

Desires are best understood as our most honest experiences of ourselves, in all our complexity and depth, as we relate to people and things around us

It is not because the truth is too difficult to see that we make mistakes... we make mistakes because the easiest and most comfortable course for us is to seek insight where it accords with our emotio...

Self-righteousness is a sense of moral superiority that appoints us as prosecutor of other people’s sinfulness. We relate to others as if we are incapable of the sins they commit. Self-righteousness w...

Constantly choose rather to want less, than to have more.