Horse 531 - God is Selfish

Selfish, adj -
1. Concerned chiefly or only with oneself
2. Arising from, characterized by, or showing selfishness

What right do I have to make such a statement? You may even think that I've gone stark raving bonkers. But please follow me on this little excursion and by the end, you'll end agree with me.

A selfish heart is one that is primarily concerned with themselves. They will do actions for chiefly their own benefit, and appear to have no regard for anyone else. Let's apply this to God, shall we? Frequently we are told of God's qualities and His motives.

Consider the first two commandments and apply them to God himself. I'm going to pinch these from Deuteronomy 5 because of something said in there that isn't in Exodus.

No1 - You shall have no other gods before me.

Fairly straight forward. Who is God's god? Obviously himself. Think about it, if He weren't his own God then there must be some other higher power, in which case this entity would be more important and therefore God. But there isn't, so He doesn't, so there.

No2 - You shall not make for yourself an idol in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

What has God got to be jealous of? If there aren't any higher powers than himself, then why should he bothered. We're told that he punishes children to even the fourth generation for people who worship something other than him. This is obviously serious.
Jealously is primarily the act of intolerance that someone else has something which you don't. In this case God demands worship, and when this isn't paid to Him, He openly tells us that He wants it to the exculsion of anyone else... selfish? Then the charge is proved guilty.

If you want to prove someone guilty of someone, then the most admissible evidence is a confession. Unless the defendant is lying, then a confession that they actually did something is pretty good proof.

Isaiah 48: 11 - For my own sake, for my own sake, I do this. How can I let myself be defamed? I will not yield my glory to another.

Confession? Guilty as charged?

I have another question. If you create or build something then what is it there for? The answer is to fulfill some purpose. A drill is there to put holes into things, a painting is there to be looked at, a motor car is there to provide transport. What are we here for?

Ecclesiastes 12:11 - Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.

People often ask what the meaning of life is. You can't get any more plain than this. Esentially where here not for own good but for God's.

Ephesians 2.10 - For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Even today, Easter Sunday was not for our benefit. The whole point of Easter was that God wanted to make His creation useful again for the purpose intended, and that is to give glory to Him. He's prepared to sacrifice His own son not only to save us from our sins (which is actually the secondary purpose) but more importantly to give glory to Himself. Selfish? I think so.

When you think about it, the only thing in all of creation... scratch that. There's only one thing not part of creation and that is God Himself. If he isn't the point to anything and everything then this by definition would be a denial of himself and therefore bring Him into idolatry.

God is the most important "thing" that ever existed and one of his biggest points is to give glory to Himself. If you can find a bigger case of selfishness, then I'd like to hear it.