Quotes about Self-indulgence

Beware of any belief that makes you self-indulgent; it came from the pit, no matter how beautiful it sounds.

The West too may find that prosperity and self-indulgence are not sufficient to satisfy human needs.

In my judgment, the church in the United States must now face hard decisions such as we have not faced for a long time. We have indeed bought in as individual persons, even as a church, on consumerism, aimed at self-indulgence, comfort, security, and safety. We live our lives out of our affluence, and we discover that all our self-indulgence makes us satiated but neither happy nor safe.

When we begin to build walls of prejudice, hatred, pride, and self-indulgence around ourselves, we are more surely imprisoned than any prisoner behind concrete walls and iron bars.

Of the seven deadly sins, anger is possbly the most fun. To lick your wounds, to smack your lips over grievances long past, to roll over your tongue the prospect of bitter confrontations still to come, to savor to the last toothsome morsel both the pain you are given and the pain you are giving back--in many ways it is a feast fit for a king. The chief drawback is that what you are wolfing down is yourself. The skeleton at the feast is you.

The focus on self has led our society into a fascination with pleasure, emotional and sexual stimulation, and "personal fulfillment." America's compulsion for "maximum personhood" is evidenced everywhere.

Having lost all sense of shame, they have given themselves over to sensuality for the practice of every kind of impurity, with a craving for more.

The burden of what Jesus says is this: give it away. Give it away gladly. Make friends by your generosity. The door to a gospel future is by generosity, outrageous, intentional giving away in the present to create a viable future. That seems to me such an urgent word, because we are so deeply caught in cycles of greed and affluence and self-indulgence and acquisitiveness of a fearful kind that will yield no human future.

American culture is so appallingly superficial, fixated on celebrities, entertainment, sports, and self-indulgence.

Confession is the God-given remedy for self-deception and self-indulgence. When we confess our sins before a brother-Christian, we are mortifying the pride of the flesh and delivering it up to shame and death through Christ. Then through the word of absolution we rise as new men, utterly dependent on the mercy of God. Confession is thus a genuine part of the life of the saints, and one of the gifts of grace.

Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.

You have lived on earth in luxury and self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter.