“…we do service because we are selfish.  We only like to make ourselves feel good. Everything we do is selfish…”  Fine.  I’m a selfish, pathetic human being.  Shame on me for feeling good about helping people.  It would probably be better for me to live a self indulging life and feel crappy about myself, because that way I wouldn’t be exploiting pain and poverty by using them to make myself feel better by trying to help.  Grrr… Okay, I know it is true. We are selfish beings.  I am selfish.  But I’m really sick of hearing that as a criticism of people who are really trying to do good.  I am getting cynical of cynicism.  Take that.

 

James 1:27

Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

 

1 John 3:16 

This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.