The Primary Motivation for My Life
(Thought I’d share with TMVers the motivation behind anything I say, do, or write. . . . I don’t always succeed, but I try).
God wants to guard my heart. He desires to protect me from pursuing a path that will hurt myself and others. He is continually asking me to consider his way, his perspective.
God is reality. He is the author of beauty, love, and life. God knows me better than I know myself. God sees, God knows, and most importantly God loves!
This is the most amazing story I’ve ever heard. God knows me, the depths of me, the darkness of me, and yet he loves me. While others rejected me, while I rejected myself, God came to me, held me in the midst of my sin sick suffering, and loved me.
Not only did God love me, but he rescued me, he pulled me to a rock that was higher than myself, he gave me a right standing I did not earn and could not earn. He gave me righteousness as a grace gift.
Instead of judgement, I received favor. Instead of death, I was given life. He clothed me when I was naked, he comforted me in the midst of my despair. He gave me a new song to sing. He gave me the song of a newborn child, the song of a softened heart, a tender soul.
God loved me when I was unlovable. He gave my life meaning, hope, and healing. God ushered me into a kingdom of love. He made me a son in his kingdom and he gave me the sacred task of taking his rescuing love to others.
God is love and my purpose is rooted in that love. Let the politicians fight for a piece of the crumbling kingdoms of man. I choose to build a better kingdom. I choose to allow the love of God to constrain and define my very life and existence.
If the task is not rooted in God’s love, then it is not my task. If the mission does not exude God’s grace and goodness, then I decline the assignment.
Love is a lasting truth. Love is a transformational truth. Love is the reason for the existence of every Christian. If I lose the assignment of love, then I lose the reason for my name. I am a Christ follower. I love, because he first loved me.
Consequently, my language must be a language of love. If a am known for anything, I must be known for my love. If I am not known for my love, then I do not serve Christ. If I am not known for my love, then the love of Christ is not in me.
In 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul writes the following rebuke to a church full of self-righteous Christ followers.
“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.”
In other words, without love, my righteous opinions, words, and actions mean absolutely nothing. The goal of my life is not to stand for what’s right, but to demonstrate my right standing through the power of love.
1 John 4:7-12 says it best:
“Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.”
With this reality in mind, today I will choose the path of love. I invite you to join me.
Doug Bursch blogs at www.fairlyspiritual.org. You can read his tweetings at Fairlyspiritual.
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Why is it so hard to keep all the negative emotions out? We have it very good here. Things are stressful now, but at the end of the day I’ve got good health, a good brain, decent looks, and live in a nation where I don’t have to worry about running out of food or armed bandits storming my village and killing me and my loved ones. There are far too many people in the world that can’t say the same through no fault of their own.
And then I read something like this which reminds me that its all just a matter of perspective, and mine needs a serious adjustment on occasion. Thanks for the post. I am going to try to make it the rest of the day with some love in my heart. And then we’ll see about tomorrow.
Yes, yes Slamfu and Doug!
Thanks for the comments. Ultimately, I’m just trying to express how I click, knowing that some may relate or at least have a better understanding of what makes me tick.
Very nice, Doug.
Thank you,
Dorian
what’d I tell you Doug. Thank you. Appreciate it. Bless us all until we mess up, then bless us even more.
“..and live in a nation where I don’t have to worry about running out of food or armed bandits storming my village..”
Not today anyway. Tormorrow? Who Knows. God is playing his cards close to his chest.
Doug, please bear in mind we “love” your secular stuff.
“… until we mess up, then bless us even more.”
Amen sister! Expanding a bit, even our most venerated saints knew they messed up all the time. Some would see this as negativism, or “enough religion to make us miserable,” but the saints didn’t see it that way, and I don’t think we should either. True, honest humility is neither negative nor miserable.