I love the Lord of the Rings books and movies. (Yes, I admit it: I'm a geek.) One of my absolute favorite things about the story is this amazing character named Sam. After Jesus, he's pretty much the best friend in the whole world. He risks everything, including his life, and goes into Mordor (basically the scariest place ever) to help his friend Frodo. This passage from Philippians (along with Galatians 6:2) could almost be his motto:
Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. --Philippians 2:3-4
In Numbers 32, Moses reams the tribes of Gad and Reuben for not doing just that. Just as the nation of Israel is about to go into the promised land and go to war against the people who are living there, they go to Moses and ask not to be taken across the Jordan River. They say that they want to say right where they are, because the land is good for their livestock. Moses reminds them that if they don't go with the rest of the people to war in the promised land, they'll make God angry with the whole nation and then He might abandon them in the wilderness, and the whole nation will be destroyed.
Most of us probably won't be required to go to war alongside our friends. And we for sure won't need to go to Mordor with them. But we all need to think about how our actions are going to impact those around us. And we need to consider their needs before our own.
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