A 3rd Barrier to serving others is WRONG MOTIVATIONS. In Matthews Gospel we find Jesus advocating, "When you do good deeds, don't try to show off. If you do, you won't get a reward from your Father in heaven." Matt. 6:1 (CEV)
The wrong motivation of showing off. Self-promotion and servanthood don't mix, but it's easy to get them mixed up.
A lot of our service, if we are honest, can be self-serving at times. We need to be honest with ourselves about that.- We serve to get others to like us.- We serve to be admired.- We serve to achieve our own goals.- We serve as sort of a bargaining chip with God. "God, I'll serve and You take care of me here."
There are all kinds of wrong motivations and it's hard to see the wrong motivations in ourselves. I have them, you have them. How do you know if you have a wrong motivation? Gratitude, or the lack of it is an indicator. When we lose a sense of gratefulness, of gratitude in our lives, we can know right away there's something wrong with our motivation.
In Matthew 6, Jesus insists on the interior and not the exterior: it seems that the religious people of his time valued the exterior very highly. And this may have been strong witness for the faith. But Jesus calls us back to the interior life: private prayer, private giving, private devotional practice so that our external life of service will be based upon a right motivation.
C S Lewis helps us understand the nature of honest motivation when he writes; “The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself.
“We are told to deny ourselves and take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.
“If there lurks in most modern minds the notion that to desire our own good and earnestly to hope for the enjoyment of it is a bad thing, I submit that this notion has crept in from Kant and the Stoics and is no part of the Christian faith.
“Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised to us in the Gospels, it would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak.
“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in the slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.
“We are far too easily pleased.” C. S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory.
Perhaps in our motivation to serve we need to pray, “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.” Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment