Those who know me have heard me, at one time or another, quote the Three Stooges. I grew up watching them, and I still consider them to be, in my opinion, comedic geniuses. You are welcome to disagree with me, but this is my post, so I can make the rules as far as what I like.

In one short, they are doctors in a hospital, ones that have just graduated from medical school. In case you are not familiar with the Three Stooges, when they tried something, they were almost always clueless and inept. This short was no exception. After visiting patients, they are called to the superintendent’s office because he is keeping tabs on them. He asks them about one patient in particular, and what they did for him. Curly quickly answers, “Nothing. What did he ever do for us?” This obviously upsets the superintendent, who responds by asking why they are working at the hospital. The stooges answer in unison, “For duty and humanity.”

With that blast from the past introduction, I’ll move on to my thoughts. We were discussing in Sunday School one morning (it was January 8, 2012 to be precise), how 2 1/2 tribes in Israel requested to stay on the other side of the Jordan and not cross into the promised land. Moses called them on this, and the tribes said that if they could build sheep pens and fortifications for those they were leaving behind, they would cross over in front of the rest of the tribes to make sure they got their inheritance. We got onto the thought that people often look first at our own needs before we look at what others need. This is “natural,” but not right.

If you are like me, there has been at least one time in your life that you have been “down in the dumps” and just not really in to helping others. Then an opportunity to meet a need comes along, and you decide that you are not happy, and see no need to make some one else happy. Besides, when did they ever see you in need of cheering up and step forward to do something? Don’t shake your pious head at me, you know that you’ve done that.

We often approach life like a business. There must be a gain for us before we spend something we have. Before I will work for someone, I must receive some type of return on my investment. While we must be careful not to become an “enabler,” (one who allows others to become lazy and have those around them pay bills, get food, do things, etc), this is an exception to the rule of putting others first. Jesus never said that we could turn people down if it didn’t provide a financial gain, or any other type of gain. We are not to look at life as if it is a stock market. At least, I have not seen any verses that support that outlook on life.

When I look, I see verses that say things like, “Whatever you do for the least of these, you do for Me,” and “Don’t withhold good from someone if it is in your power to act.” That kind of causes a problem when I try to use that why bother routine. If I was just in life for myself, then I could look at these situations in light of what I got in return. But here’s the rub (I’m trying to see how many cliches I can work into a single post without being blatantly obvious), I have attached Christian to my professional title. That means that I have a specific protocol to follow, and return on investment is not included in in that protocol.

So now what? I still have that desire to take care of myself first, but here I am, following Christ, which means that others go first. Well, how in the world, or anywhere else, am I going to be able to go head to head with Jesus and come out the winner? My hopes of a successful debate on that level are extremely bleak. I am delusional if I think I can outdo Jesus when it comes to deciding whether to put self or others first.

The obvious, and correct, choice is to meet the needs of others first. There actually are returns that we get when we help others. While we peruse them together, keep in mind that any returns we get are not the reason to help others in the first place.

First off, there is that warm fuzzy feeling. I think that’s the technical term for it. Surely (whatever your name might be [obscure movie reference]) you can relate to what I mean. You can think of a time that you did something nice, and, even if you weren’t thanked for it, you had a nice feeling from knowing that you helped another person. That’s a nice feeling, but it can also get addicting, even to where you will do more and more just to keep getting that warm fuzzy feeling. Though helping others is a great idea, your motives are wrong, therefore you cannot use this feeling as the sole reason to put others first.

Another return comes from Jesus, and is mentioned above. Matthew 25:31-46 tells Jesus’ words about how those who followed Him will be separated from those who did not. He says that people who do good for others, do good for Him. Again, I don’t think He meant this to be the sole reason to help others. Although, I cannot fault anyone for serving Jesus, I think that there is something on a deeper level.

Why should we put others first, put our needs in the back seat and let others ride shotgun? If you ask me, and I will pretend you did, it can be summed up in one word. Four letters that encompass so much more than we like to think about.

That one word is love. I know that love can be overused at times, but think about this. God gave the Israelites the 10 Commandments. Jesus later boiled them down to 2. Note: Jesus didn’t do away with the other 8, He just showed what all 10 of them consisted of. Love God with all that you are, and love others like you love yourself.

When the wedding feast commences, you want to hear “Well done, My good and faithful servant,” right? Why? Is it because you like to party? No, because you love God, and, as a result, you love people.

I know that I jumped around a lot in this one, but I hope you understand what I’m trying to say. We all get where we feel down. When that happens, we aren’t allowed to mistreat others. Just because we aren’t happy doesn’t give us permission to bring them down. The world does not revolve around any of us.