I woke up this morning with this verse in mind. The more I thought about it and dissected it in my mind the more I gained a new understanding of the verse.
It comes from Philippians chapter 2, verse 3 "Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others."
The breakdown went something like this..
Do nothing from SELFISHNESS (meaning acting out of an "it's all about me" mentality) or EMPTY CONCEIT (I know what empty means, yes, but empty conceit? Google....)
*pause
I then dug up this very well thought out and written definition from a blogger - I quote "Selfishness, of course, is when we are seeking personal gain. But empty conceit is something altogether different (although it is still based in selfishness). It is when we act based on an exalted view of ourselves and our own importance."
Specifically -- "When we act based on an exalted view of ourselves and our own importance"
I love that wording! I'd never thought of empty conceit like that before either. Regretfully my first instinct was to examine the people in my lives who SO do that. Then I reflect for a second and remember 1 Timothy 1:15 "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners--of whom I am the worst."
Jesus came to save sinners -- of whom I am the worst. Truer words were never spoken.
So while, yes, it is ridiculously easy to pull several logs out of peoples eyes and think "wow, doesn't get much worse than what ________ is doing, now does it?" *buzzer noise. Wrong. I've done worse than that. We should always examine first ourselves and how we've shamed God in our own actions and words and allow the Holy Spirit to bring forth the proper conviction for the names of offenders on our mental lists.
Christ died for us all - kings and beggars. The greatest and the least of us. Let us not count ourselves as more important than anyone else because at the end of the day we are still sinners in need of rescue.
End Rant.
