ARE WE CHRISTIANS BECAUSE OF WHAT WE CAN GET OUT OF IT?

Is our motivations the same as others’ motivation? Do we live our lives to maximize pleasure and to minimize pain? Is Jesus simply our preferred pain-management consultant? Scripture tells us something that we can all endorse. We have come to follow Jesus for selfish reasons. It is only because He loved us first that we have come to love 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…We love because he first loved us.  (1 John 4:10, 19)

Does this mean that our love for Jesus depends upon what we expect to get from Him, as many charge? However, this same charge can also be brought against Jesus:

·       Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Hebrews 12:2)

To charge that Jesus submitted to the Cross because He was motivated by His anticipated joy is absurd. He also told His disciples that He receives His fulfillment in serving the Father: “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to accomplish his work (John 4:34). Was it them a matter of selfishness that Jesus submitted to the will of His Father? Not at all! Indeed, He was nourished by serving the Father. However, His primary motivation was love:

·       …the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” (Matthew 20:28)

Let me try to apply this to myself and to you also. When Jesus called me, I had been an utterly broken and self-centered person. I was drowning. My only consideration was to be rescued. Even now, I am dependent upon His daily bread. However, after 42 years of following Him, He has brought about some changes. Yes, I am still selfish, more than I care to admit. However, there are significant changes. Generally speaking, all that I want to do is to serve and honor my Savior. Therefore, I want to build His Church. These have become my all-consuming passions, even as I continue to struggle against my fleshly impulses, which grieve me deeply.

But Jesus also had to struggle against His own fleshly impulses. He prayed that He would not have to go to the Cross. However, this wasn’t according to the will of His Father to which He submitted.

However, even though the will of His Father came first for Him, Jesus was able to endure the Cross by looking towards His future joy. What actually did He see?

·       Out of the anguish of his soul he shall see and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one, my servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities. (Isaiah 53:11)

While, the honor of His Father is what motivated Jesus, His anticipated joy and satisfaction was the engine that drove Him forward.

Jesus is a model for us. We too need to look ahead towards the joy set before us (Hebrews 12:2) lest we become weary. However, serving God is to be our all-consuming passion. There is nothing self-centered about this.