True Motivation

Then I said, “Here I am—it is written about me in the scroll—I have come to do your will, O God.” —Hebrews 10:7

What do you suppose motivated Jesus? First of all, it was reverence. It was reverence for His Father. If you want to know something about the mind of Christ, I challenge you just to make a study of the Gospel of John and look at the relationship Jesus had with His Father. He put it like this, for example, in John 5:30:

By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me.

And then later in that chapter He said this, a verse that many years ago gripped me and I hope will grip you:

How can you believe if you accept praise from one another, yet make no effort to obtain the praise that comes from the only God? —John 5:44

If that kind of thinking will grip you, then you are a candidate to think about the mind of Christ.

All this will only make sense once there is embedded in you a true fear of God. All that a preacher or writer may say or expound will only become relevant if this is so. And that has to happen between you and God. As long as you are looking at someone else and hoping that you will be noticed by this person and are thereby getting your motivation, then your motivation is phony and will not last. Perhaps you want your church leaders to notice your endeavors, and this drives you to carry on. But this cannot work. Something, sooner or later, has to happen so that your honor comes from God. That is all that matters. Then you are not looking to see who else notices you: you are consumed with the passion of wanting God to notice you, taking your orders from above.

Excerpted from Meekness and Majesty (Christian Focus Publications Ltd., 1992, 2000).