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TOPIC: Gordon, Samuel Dickey - Quiet Talks About the Tempter (Other Topics in this Collection)
SUBJECT: 068. What Is Unselfishness?
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What Is Unselfishness?
His unselfishness meant simply this, that He lived for the Father, and for others, not for Himself. The passion of His life was for His Father. Selfishness at its core means that the passion is for one's self. The passion of Satan's heart is wholly and only for himself. Unselfishness is the strong thoughtful giving of one's self out in doing the Father's will in glad service among men.
Selfishness is a passion for self; unselfishness, or selflessness, is a passion for God, and that always means for others in their need. The streams of life naturally turn out. Wherever Satan has been able to control or influence with His subtle cunning, those streams all turn in. And wherever the streams all turn in there is a Dead Sea. Many a man's life, many a so-called Christian man's life, is simply the coast-line of a Dead Sea. We ought to be studying more carefully the direction of the current of that stream, I mean the undercurrent.
Jesus was swept by a passion for Another. He was utterly unselfish, selfless in this strong, good meaning. And, if you will please note very sharply, He was so because He chose to be. The air about Him was thick with temptations luring the other way. He had to choose, and, very reverently let me say, that that choice was not easy. It took a real, positive, continual action by His will.
The self-life came to Jesus in very subtle guise. The temptation to self-assertion for His own sake came to Him incessantly throughout that humble Nazareth life clear up to the tragic end of Calvary's ninth hour. But neither self-pity nor misunderstandings of His purpose by others, nor the pleadings of mistaken love, as when His mother seems to have sought—not realizing what she did—to use her influence with Him, none of these swerved Him. He chose to keep all considerations of self severely out.
In this He was simply being true to the decision that sin should find no entrance. And in this He was defeating Satan. Self-seeking is the inner heart of the Satan-spirit. It gives him footing and freedom. The absence of the self-seeking spirit was a complete undercutting of Satan. In that He emphasized His own victory, and Satan's defeat. Every advancing hour of His life made greater that victory, and that defeat, until the great climax at Calvary.
These are the two tremendous negatives in Jesus' human character that underlie the great victory. And no words could ever tell how much of strong choosing power was called forth by these two negatives—no sin, no self.