Psalm 119:36 Selfish Again

Turn my heart toward your statutes
and not toward selfish gain.

Psalm 119:36

Selfish Ways to Approach God's Word:

Read the Bible as a Self-Help guide.  Considering Jesus clearly says the two greatest commandments are to love God and to love others, why do so many believers only use the Word like it's their personal self-help book? You help yourself by getting out of yourself and investing in the lives of others. The Bible is a guide on how to do that. (Philippians 2:3-4; Matthew 20:28)

Focus on discovering proofs of how right your theology is and how wrong other groups are.  This is pretty much what I grew up thinking the Bible was for: a way to prove those "denominationals" wrong. When you're focused on putting down someone else, that's envy. That's not what the Bible is for.   (James 3:16; Proverbs 18:1)

Concentrate on what the Bible says about the sins of the flesh. Oh, yes, there's plenty written about the sins of the flesh. But some people seem to be obsessed with the fleshly sins of the world, while ignoring the spiritual and attitude sins in their own hearts. (Romans 8:5)

Search the scriptures for things you can use to control the actions of others. If your goal is to tell other people where they're sinning, to set up rules for their behavior, then you're just being selfish. Sounds a lot like what the Pharisees were good at. (II Peter 2)

Read the Bible and then go and live however you want. Throughout history there have been many church-going people who will listen to sermons, read the Bible, and go through the rituals of religion, but then live their daily lives according to the selfish and sinful ways of their heart. We read verses like Romans 2:8 and think it's talking about non-Christians who "are self-seeking and reject the truth and follow evil." But there are plenty of outwardly religious people who are doing the same thing.


So what can you do to break your habits of selfish Bible reading? Pray before (and during) your Bible reading. As Tim Challies has put it so well, Prayerlessness is Selfishness.

Do you really think you can rise above your selfishness, your preconceived notions, the influence of the mass media, and understand the path of God's statutes without his help? Of course not.

Challies quotes H.B. Charles Jr:

“The things you pray about are the things you trust God to handle. The things you neglect to pray about are the things you trust you can handle on your own.”

Father, help me to not interpret your Word according to my own selfish way of seeing things. Through your Holy Spirit, illumine and inspire, so I can fully understand your heart and be directed in your way. Guard me from the conceit that I can do this without you.