The things we want
People generally want the same things.
Health, wealth, freedom, peace, pleasure, good food, friends, power, love, respect, rest, being understood, and things in the same vein that mainly fall into the category of personal comfort and enjoyment.
People generally have the freedom to make their own choices, whether it's to monitor one's diet carefully and discipline oneself to exercise regularly, or whether to binge on Cheetos and donuts and pizza on the couch regularly.
What should not be done in pursuit of personal pleasure?
How about the person who is eager to improve their failing health by taking replacement organs from another person who wants to live just as much?
What if the sick person is a beautiful, otherwise healthy child who just needs a transplant, and the person who has that organ is disabled and unproductive? Or a monstrous killer on death row?
The world is full of the "me first" mentality. We all generally think of ourselves first, and by extension *our* family, kids, friends above strangers.
People don't often stop to think about what it is they actually want and why, or why they think they are entitled to have the things they want, even if it means others are deprived of them.
Nor do they often stop to think about what they are willing to do to get it...who they are willing to step on.
How badly you can want a thing that isn't right for you to have doesn't change how wrong it is for you to take what doesn't rightfully belong to you.
When it comes to our own behavior, we are good at making excuses, inventing noble intentions to cover the true ones, justifying hurting others. But when others do similar things toward us, we notice the wrong very quickly and make no excuses for the wrong actions taken against us.
When the front is traversed and the truth that lurks beneath each human is understood for what it is, human nature as a whole is seen for the disgusting mess that it is. Each of us is fallen and prone to selfishness, greed, lust, pride, careless disregard for other humans, that flagrant "me first" mentality.
Comprehending how the Creator God could look at these diseased carcasses and call us beloved is beyond human understanding.
Psalm 86:5
You, Lord, are forgiving and good, abounding in love to all who call to you.
Ephesians 2:4-5
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ - by grace you have been saved.
Galatians 2:20
I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.
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