Joy

Joy! I read where that means Jesus, Others, Yourself. One person said that we should put Jesus first and that is true and then others before yourself. Now that is where the problems start; you see we all from when we were just small children had a favorite word we used "mine." We like ourselves! We want the best seat, the name brand clothes, the perfect body and we want to be the first one in line. I think you get the picture. We want what's best for ourselves, could that be called being selfish?  Sure it is, God gave Adam one command:

Genesis 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:

Genesis 2:17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. God tells Adam that he is not to do just one thing and all is well until Adam sees that what was wrong might just better himself; so Adam decided to be selfish. He takes of the tree God told him that he couldn’t have, and why did Adam do such a thing? He thought that it would make life better for him and he would be wise but instead he now is kicked out of a perfect garden for his selfishness. You and I have the same problem we say things like ‘everybody else gets to……. I want, I want and I want it for myself. I remember when I was a kid and it was time to share with my brother my wise mother would have one of us cut the item and then the other would get to choose first. It didn’t matter which one of us was doing the cutting we made sure that the other one didn’t get a bigger piece. No, our problem was selfishness. This week we will all have an opportunity to do something for someone else that we ourselves would rather do. Why not offer it to another and not be selfish. Jesus was always doing and giving Himself for others; let’s be more like Jesus this week.