Doing the Right Thing for the Right Reason

My Utmost For His Highest

‘But the chief motivation behind Paul’s service was not love for others but love for his Lord. If our devotion is to the cause of humanity, we will be quickly defeated and broken-hearted, since we will often be confronted with a great deal of ingratitude from other people. But if we are motivated by our love for God, no amount of ingratitude will be able to hinder us from serving one another.’  CHAMBERS

So what is my motivation for service?  That is really the question that provokes.  Something I have heard myself say .. “I will do whatever I can for people, but ungratefulness makes me want to not help.”  It doesn’t matter what I give up to serve .. it doesn’t matter where I serve … if I don’t have the right heart attitude, the right motivation, I do it in vain.  My purpose in life is to point people to Jesus not impress them with my service or sacrifice.  I serve God to the benefit of man, not the other way around. 

I don’t know if you have ever watched ‘Ground Hog Day’.  Bill Murray is stuck on one day until he get’s it right .. there is one scene where he looks at his watch, runs down the sidewalk and then catches a kid who is falling out of a tree, day after day.  Bill tells the kid to say thankyou and the kid just runs off.  At first he does it and expects gratitude, but eventually he does it because it is the right thing to do. 

The response from people should not matter to me. Whether they are grateful or not does not matter. I am showing them Jesus not looking for praise. What is most important is that I respond to God’s leading.  My desire is that I would say ‘yes’, unconditionally.

(Philippians 3:7-10)  "But what things were gain to me, these I have counted loss for Christ. Yet indeed I also count all things loss for the excellence of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord, for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having my own righteousness, which is from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness which is from God by faith; that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings"

I must be careful that I don’t consider my self, righteous because of what I do … I am righteous but only through Jesus … if my works have any eternal value it is because of Jesus Christ and Him alone.  What I do must be motivated by my love for Him, first and my love for others second … my love for myself comes in dead last.

Let your light shine today

Bondye Beni Ou (God Bless You)