Sunday, November 22, 2015

Love Thy Selfie

by Jerry Sheppard

"For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy." (2 Timothy 3:2, ESV)

It is no secret that "self love" is on the rise today. So much so that the present generation is three times more "self-centered" than the previous generations. It is one thing to "love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:31, ESV), but it is quite another thing when you have an unhealthy view of yourself. For another Scripture says, "I say to everyone among you not to think more highly of himself than he [or she] ought to think" (Rom. 12:3, NASB). It is hard to focus on others if our focus is too much on ourselves. The Apostle Paul instructs, "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." (Phil. 2:3-4, NASB).

At present, there is much in music, the social media, magazines, movies, and so on, in our society that promotes the "self" life. Modern technology is boasted to help make our lives easier, but instead it has fed our egos and inflated our self-esteem in such a way that we think too highly of ourselves. Many people from various age groups have become narcissistic, self-entitled, and privileged. Such people get easily offended if you don't feed into their over-inflated perception of themselves. Such social websites as Facebook is chock-full of profiles of young people who have numerous "selfie" photos. It's like they are obsessed with themselves and addicted to the attention they get from the number of "Likes" and complimenting comments they get.