C
cyberpi
Guest
I start with the flip side: a person can commit a crime or a sin for different reasons. Self defense, mental illness, genetic bias, misguided upbringing, greed, pre-meditation, accident or foolishness, intoxication, impatience, anger, retribution, or even while selflessly trying to help others whom they love. Maybe there is a motive or an intent, and maybe not. Some acts are mindless.
Is hating a criminal or enemy selfish? My response is: hate the crime, but always love the person. Separate the two because people can change. Turning a blind eye to the crimes committed by a person or running and hiding is outright selfish. Yet so is hating the person. Whether fight or flight, both are selfish. Taking the apathetic approach of doing nothing to claim to be sinless is a sham... but then so is hating someone and pretending to love them. I find that Matthew 25 speaks against apathy from three different aspects.
So back to the question: if hatred or apathy are for different reasons or motivations then how different is it for then maybe there are different motivations for acts of kindness or good deeds? Maybe some acts are done for selfish reasons. I find the answer in Matthew 6.
Matthew 6:1-4 `Take heed your kindness not to do before men, to be seen by them, and if not -- reward ye have not from your Father who [is] in the heavens; whenever, therefore, thou mayest do kindness, thou mayest not sound a trumpet before thee as the hypocrites do, in the synagogues, and in the streets, that they may have glory from men; verily I say to you -- they have their reward! `But thou, doing kindness, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doth, that thy kindness may be in secret, and thy Father who is seeing in secret Himself shall reward thee manifestly.
So I consider that to be the way out of the mind twister of how NOT to be selfish. Do it not for reward, do it for others, do it for strangers, and do it for God that a person does not see but that he sees everything.