What motivates the people you know? Do they have goals? Plans? Dreams? What drives their lives?
The question is easiest to answer about small children: they want good food, enough sleep, and constant entertainment. Children are born selfish. Nothing wrong with that, really—we are all born selfish, but must not remain there.
Yet most do.
For most of us, SELF is the driving force in our lives.
We call it other things, of course. Sometimes we use positive terms, recasting self-centeredness as being ‘goal-oriented’ or ‘ambitious’ or ‘motivated.’ Sometimes we use negative terms, recasting self-centeredness as ‘lazy,’ ‘unmotivated,’ or ‘parties too much.’
Even though motivated people appear completely different from the unmotivated, both can be entirely, 100% selfish. In an odd way, they may not be different at all, but the same: selfish.
Of course, some “selfish” goals are objectively better than others. Hard work is better than laziness. But as we mature in Christ, we must exchange our self-centered goals for Christ-centered goals.
“He died for all so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for the One who died for them and was raised” 2 Corinthians 5:15.
Do you live “for the One who died” for you?
If you were drowning in a raging river and someone rescued you but the rescuer then slipped back in and drowned, you would feel indebted to him forever. You would try to do things for his family, be a mentor to his orphaned children, pay for his kids’ college, buy the widow a car, etc.
In fact, Someone has died for you. And “we who live should no longer live for ourselves” but for Him. Talk to Jesus:
God, I give you my plans, big and small, my dreams for today and for the rest of my life. I give you my time, talents, and tasks. Help me to lay it all at Your feet. I surrender all. Please speak to me and show me YOUR plans for today and every day. I want to live for YOU, not for me.
ΑΩ
Household Words: 