Motivation is important

One of our friends seemed driven to helping people. He admitted that he always felt like he needed to “do something” yet this attitude was affecting his health. I prayed that if something was awry, the Lord would intervene.

He did. I don’t know what, but the change is obvious. This man is settled, happier, listening to what the Lord wants done instead of being driven to help even those who don’t need help. When I read this verse today, I realized how the people of God can slide into thinking other than God wants us to think. 

To the pure, all things are pure, but to the defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure; but both their minds and their consciences are defiled. They profess to know God, but they deny him by their works. They are detestable, disobedient, unfit for any good work. (Titus 1:15–16)

While these words are for those in extreme denial, I can see that to the needy, all people are needy. If I am not trusting God, I cannot see spiritual truth well. If I am overcome by a sense of uselessness, I cannot imagine feeling adequate. If I slump into feeling too unworthy to be loved by God, I can be driven to prove my value. A good dose of the gospel changes that.

For some time, I had a sense of worthlessness and my ambition to ‘be valuable’ began to drive me to say YES at times when I should have said NO — not that the task didn’t need someone to do it, but my motive to ‘do something’ was selfish. This brings no glory to Christ.

One area where this came out was a deep desire to obey the following passage. At first, I didn’t notice that it was written to a pastor, but I did notice that few older women were doing it. My ambition was to change that.

Older women likewise are to be reverent in behavior, not slanderers or slaves to much wine. They are to teach what is good, and so train the young women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. (Titus 2:3–5)

But personal ambition is useless as well as dangerous. No one that I know of was changed by my efforts to change them. Eventually God showed me that His power is perfected in weakness, that my efforts were weak and useless, and I needed to seek Him for everything: writing this, doing daily chores, even stitching quilts, as well as talking to people, everything. Finally He gave me time with another older woman, a quiet and shy person, and behold, she is fulfilling this Titus 2 passage. 

I’m to live the gospel each day. It isn’t about personal ambition. Jesus isn’t using ‘driven’ people, only those filled with His Spirit and obedient to His voice.

For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, led astray, slaves to various passions and pleasures, passing our days in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another. But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of works done by us in righteousness, but according to his own mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that being justified by his grace we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. The saying is trustworthy, and I want you to insist on these things, so that those who have believed in God may be careful to devote themselves to good works. These things are excellent and profitable for people. (Titus 3:3–8)

Most of the time obedience is nothing lavish or even things I notice, but being Spirit-filled is not a self-aware condition. It is listening and being God-aware and devoted to glorifying Jesus Christ. For some, this happens sooner rather than taking years to learn how stubborn we humans can be.

And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful. (Titus 3:14)

PRAY: Lord, I had no idea this would be Your focus for me today. My to-do list is long, and You know how often I need reminding of the importance of abiding in You. Without You, I am nothing and the effort I put out must be at Your direction — not my self-focused ambitions.

Consider the source…

A family we know loves to tell stories that they make up. some see them as pranks and humor and laugh at some of the results. Others believe the stories and when they realize they were just stories, they see this family as a bunch of liars. Who is making the right judgment? 

Only God knows the heart and what motivates anything we do. I’m not good at figuring out my own heart so realize the importance of avoiding quick judgments. Yet even as I write this, I realize how easily mistakes can be made. Yesterday someone sent me a description of a person recently in the news. I don’t know that person nor have never heard him speak but I trusted the evaluation sent to me because I know and trust the sender. 

The description was of a powerful man of God. However, last night I read on social media the opposite opinion. According to that description of the same man, he was evil, a trouble-maker, and not anything like the first opinion. I prayed about this, not that it matters to me personally, but wondered how to think after reading both views. 

Charnock gave some light. He writes how those who reject God as Creator also reject Him as authority. If someone defames a Christian, it might be because they have believed in evolution and God (if He exists) has no right to tell them how to live.

Charnock adds that our Creator has a natural dominion over us as creatures before He has a dominion by consent over us as converts. We are like that too. When we create something, we have a right of possessing what we make. We can either cherish it or dash it in pieces, add to it or deface it. This means the first cause of everything has dominion. Those who agree with God, worship Him for this. Those who don’t will resent and even hate it and those who proclaims it. These verses come to mind:

For the Lord is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. (Psalm 95:3–5)
The God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in temples made by man... (Acts 17:24)
For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Claiming to be wise, they became fools... (Romans 1:18–22)

God surprised me in my daily reading through the Bible by the passage that was next. He says this about the huge rift between believers and those who do not:

The righteous man perishes, and no one lays it to heart; devout men are taken away, while no one understands. For the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace; they rest in their beds who walk in their uprightness. But you, draw near, sons of the sorceress, offspring of the adulterer and the loose woman. Whom are you mocking? Against whom do you open your mouth wide and stick out your tongue? Are you not children of transgression, the offspring of deceit, (Isaiah 57:1–4)

He later reminds people how He has held His peace for a long time, yet they do not fear Him, but go on in their own way. Yet He tells all that there is another way: “The Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save, or his ear dull, that it cannot hear.” Deadness happens because “iniquities have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden his face from you so that he does not hear. For your hands are defiled. . . .  your lips have spoken lies; your tongue mutters wickedness. No one enters suit justly; no one goes to law honestly; they rely on empty pleas, they speak lies, they conceive mischief and give birth to iniquity. . . . The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths; they have made their roads crooked; no one who treads on them knows peace.” (Isaiah 59:1-4; 8)

PRAY: Oh Lord, those who hate You will protest and persecute those who love You and whoever convicts them of sin. Yet those who stand up for You can offend others, by shouting “Turn or burn” rather than “Jesus loves You and died for You” — both are true, yet speaking the truth in love is a NT command, even though gentle words can be rejected just as strong warnings can be rejected. You are Lord. May Your truth prevail. Amen.
 

The love of God. . . .

Today is considered ‘love’ day when special expressions of love are offered, expected, and appreciated. This is not a worldwide holiday. Several countries do not recognize it. A few designate it as a private thing, unlike North America where the stores are filled with red, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates.

Biblical love is generally not describe the same way we describe romantic love. Bible love is more about the love of God for those who know Jesus and how that love is expressed.

That said, today’s reading speaks of another idea about love. When Lazarus died, Jesus went to his sisters and one verse says, “Jesus wept.” At this, The Jews said, “See how he loved him!” (John 11:36) This is oddly different from the words of both sisters who said, “If You had been here…” perhaps implying His love failed them. In other words, reading this brings out the fact that I cannot see hearts and know why people say or do what they do, particularly about love.

This reminds me of the pastor who saw a woman weeping during his message and assumed she was deeply touched by what he said. After the service, he found out she was crying because her cat just died!

As for the tears of Jesus, it seems wise not to interpret them by saying what made Him weep. Who knows? Sometimes we don’t understand the motivations of others.

The study of love languages gives more examples. One of my family feels loved when given gifts, but she is not greedy in the slightest. I feel loved when listened to and rejected when ignored. Others feel loved when touched, valuing a hug or a touch on their arm. It appears that the Jews interpreted Jesus’ tears as an expression of love but He may have thought something else. He also wept in another situation:

And when he drew near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, “Would that you, even you, had known on this day the things that make for peace! But now they are hidden from your eyes. For the days will come upon you, when your enemies will set up a barricade around you and surround you and hem you in on every side and tear you down to the ground, you and your children within you. And they will not leave one stone upon another in you, because you did not know the time of your visitation.” (Luke 19:41–44)

His tears did express love, grief, and loss, but not because a friend died. Instead, Jerusalem rejected His arrival as their Messiah and He felt great sorrow for them and for what they were missing. At the grave of Lazarus, He could have wept because of a similar lack of faith in His power to raise Lazarus.

When the Bible tells me to love others, I’m also seeing how love is not always what I might suppose either. One passage says biblical love comes from those who know God and His love — through knowing Christ and His salvation. Love from me is His love in me, not from just me. I must abide in Him, be certain of His love, be confident that I’m forgiven and without fear of judgment. I love God because He loves me, and can only love His way by being certain of His love. (1 John 4:7–19) I need to be filled with His Spirit to love in a way that makes others feel loved by God.

Scripture also describes love in more concrete terms that show how God's love is not about what most people think it is. Instead of loving someone for how good they make me feel, showing His love is an expression of care for others without any benefit in it for me:

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. (1 Corinthians 13:1–7)

PRAY: Lord, Your love is far beyond human description and ability. The closest I can come to understand it is by staying near the cross where You died. You say most of us would likely not  die for a righteous person, or maybe a good person, but in love, You died for us while we were still sinners. Enable me to never turn my heart away from this amazing and gracious ultimate expression of Your love, a love not based on performance or what anyone does for me, except that You love me and You died for me.  (Romans 5:7–8)

Is it okay to talk to strangers?

 

When I was little, mother told us not to talk to strangers. These days, that rule is wise because the danger of abduction is very real. However, what happens when we become adults? How do we treat people we have never met, even at church?

For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in, and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, “You sit here in a good place,” while you say to the poor man, “You stand over there,” or, “Sit down at my feet,” have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts? (James 2:2–4)

In our church culture these verses would only apply to ushers. However, I can think of more personal situations. For instance, my hubby helps with after brunch clean-up once a month. While he and the clean-up team do that, I find someone to talk with and it is always a person that I know. Yet those who linger after brunch can include new-comers or people I’ve never met. I never talk to them and not thought that this slight “favoritism” to talk to those I know is motivated by a selfish desire to make the conversation easier for me. Yet today’s devotional makes me think it might be.

MacArthur tells of a pastor who never ministered to an individual or family in his church without first checking a current record of their financial contributions. The more generous they were with their money, the more generous he was with his time. While that is an appalling display of favoritism, is it no worse than me playing favorites with who I talk to?

A few weeks ago, I was in another city and managed to have enjoyable conversations with several strangers. That was a lesson for me. Yet last week at a banquet, I saw a woman who looked crabby and I entertained no thoughts of even nodding hello. However, I had a name of a person that I wanted to speak with, and had a friend introduce me — to the woman who looked crabby. We had a delightful conversation. Another lesson.

It is not wrong to talk to those who look pleasant and are well-dressed or to chat with my friends. That is not the issue. The issue is what motivates me? Is it a love for others, or is it a desire to avoid discomfort or awkwardness? Is it to feel good myself? Or to help or bless another person?

My love for people is revealed in how I treat them. James says my choices could involve making distinctions, even judging others with sinful thoughts. All this is revealed when I do not treat people equally and select some over others when it is easier for me. If I avoid conversations with someone I’ve never talked to before for the sake of my own comfort, I’m guilty of favoritism.

As MacArthur says, favoritism can be subtle. He says, “That’s why you must be in prayer and in the Word, constantly allowing the Spirit to penetrate and purify your deepest, most secret motives.” I agree.

PRAY: Jesus, I praise You for always showing me how I can be more like You. Your motivations are never about Yourself. You speak to me to bless and purify my life. While I don’t have Your abilities, I can show others Your love, not for my own comfort but that they might know Your grace and blessing. Fill me with Your Spirit and grant me godly motivations and actions in my conversations with others.

PONDER: Read the above passage from James again, then read 1 Peter 2:17 and Romans 13:1. What is the difference between honoring others and partiality?

 

 

Exalting the Lord — His Way . . .

 

After reading that survey yesterday about what people say makes them happy, I’ve had several thoughts. One item on the list was ‘being in control of my own life’ and while the attitude of going our own way rather than toward God is the root of sin, there are people in the world in slavery. The NT has much to say about the godly response of Christians who are slaves, however enslaving people is also sin. What then is an acceptable form of slavery? In Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi, he said that he and Timothy were servants or bond-slaves of Jesus Christ.

It is interesting that evil spirits knew this. As Paul and his companions were going to a place of prayer . . .

We were met by a slave girl who had a spirit of divination and brought her owners much gain by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and us, crying out, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who proclaim to you the way of salvation.” And this she kept doing for many days. Paul, having become greatly annoyed, turned and said to the spirit, “I command you in the name of Jesus Christ to come out of her.” And it came out that very hour. (Acts 16:16–18)

Her words were correct, but their source was not the Holy Spirit. Why would a demon do this?

On the other hand, Paul’s goal was to exalt Christ and tell others the gospel. When he was in jail, he said:

Some indeed preach Christ from envy and rivalry, but others from good will. The latter do it out of love, knowing that I am put here for the defense of the gospel. The former proclaim Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely but thinking to afflict me in my imprisonment. What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is proclaimed, and in that I rejoice. Yes, and I will rejoice. (Philippians 1:15–18)

The slave girl’s words annoyed him in contrast to those who preached to hurt him? Her words came from an evil spirit. This makes me wonder about cults and false teachers, even Christian preachers who use the right words with the wrong motives. Also, were these evil spirits trying to create the impression that they had the same interest in exalting Christ as did Paul? This is a lie!

There are many enemies of the gospel including those who twist it, those who preach it with false motives for personal gain, and those who are demonically influenced to make their evil motives seem good. I will not name names, yet some of these enemies are prominent, and draw large crowds in which some may actually be saved, but they are also making money and enjoying their power.

In contrast to the lifestyle and motivation of these enemies, the Lord said of Paul, “He is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel. For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.” (Acts 9:15–16) Paul was a slave of a different kind, not to money, power, or personal gain. In fact, he gave up much:

For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain . . . . But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death . . . Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. (Philippians 1:21; 3:7–12)

This is profound. Paul exemplifies true slavery as well as true joy. He wrote from jail. His life was filled with struggles and yet his desire to exalt Christ gave him endurance in trials. His goal remained, even when facing Satan’s tactics to appear as ‘an angel of light’ or when others tried to out-preach him while he was in prison. His focus was to glorify Jesus and share the Gospel, not a false Jesus, not a false gospel, and not with self-centered motives. I need to be discerning of teachers and speakers on radio and television, and who write books. I also need to watch that my motives and actions line up with truth and never find their source in the world’s notions, the flesh’s selfishness, or the devil’s lies.

Lord Jesus, I am blessed to understand that You want my attitude and actions to line up with Your will. ‘God-talk’ is not always about God. False teaching is subtle and everywhere. The enemy and his cohorts disguise themselves and try to look ‘Christian’ to deceive people. May You keep me from all that, that I might glorify You.

MORE: Read Exodus 15:1–21 and Psalm 99 looking for ways I can exalt the Lord.