What is my motivation?

MMMM Bacon

We have all seen the scene; the over dramatic thespian is struggling to get their lines right and they inquire with zeal to their director "what is my motivation?"

There is one thing that all of us are motivated by; food. I work at a special needs school and to motivate some of our students food items are used as reinforces for targeted behaviors. When "Jimmy" does something right he gets a skittle and when he doesn't, he doesn't. Seeing that connection I understand why I show up at work everyday; because if did not, I would go hungry. It isn't that I do not like my work or find it somewhat fulfilling, but the basic motivation behind me getting up and being at work by 8 is because, without being there I will not get feed the following month. That hungry drives us to wake up, even when we don't feel like getting out of bed. That hungry moves us to deal with situations that we would normally not put ourselves in. That hungry moves us to keep showing up everyday until we retire or find a better feeding trough. That hungry will drive us to do some pretty crazy things.


Lets look at this spiritually:


What about when Jesus said that those who hungry and thirst for righteousness will be filled, (Matthew 5)? What does that hungry and thirst for righteousness cause us to do then? Do we hungry for righteousness so much that we fight for our time with God? Do we thirst so much for him, that we feel it when we haven't been praying? Just like hungry pains seem to disappear if we ignore them long enough, so does the hungry drive for righteousness if we ignore it long enough. And just as if we are in a routinely of eating healthy and our appetite for good food grows. Just as our desire for the word of God grows as we spend more time with him. So I would like to challenge all of us to seek out the Lord and ask him to grow our appetite for righteousness and to keep eating of his word because he is the only true satisfaction in this life.


So fight for your time with God, just a man works hard for his food, so should we work hard for our to be more righteous.

The way God has made for us to grow in righteousness is through prayer, reading of the bible and being in a biblical community. Yet none of this matters unless God has changed your heart, he puts the desire for righteousness in your heart when the Holy Spirit gives you a new nature, one that hungers and thirst for Him, not for sin like you once did. So if God hasn't changed your nature, repent of your sins and believe the gospel; the fact that Jesus died for evil men, that is my hope, that is my motivation.

I had a thought...

I had a something strange happen to me the other night... I got home at midnight and found all one hundred and forty square feet of my house smelling like my trash.  So I promptly took my lovely mix of gross and eww to the dumpster and then I saw my house. Now that's not so strange, actually that shows to be good thing seeing that no one had taken my home while I was taking out the trash (when your home is on wheels and has an engine you wonder if your house is going to be driven away by someone who thinks it is a tank with a couch in it), what was strange is I had the enlightening thought "holy crap I live in that?" Now I've been there for almost two months, you'd think I would have not have thought that like it was a new thing. You would think I would be think that pretty frequently. Yet that night I saw the real state of my home.

It is kinda like when we first see our sin; we have lived in it for years... yet we have never seen the absurdity of it all. We never saw it in a true light. Much like I had never looked at my house that I way, we never see our sin for what it really is until it is compared with the greatness of God, and how it really has made him mad. When we view of God's wrath, the beauty of Jesus dieing for you and me gets even prettier. It is a like a  snowflake on a black surface, the details of it are brought forth.When we forget about the wrath of God, we are taking away the background of a beautiful work of art.


Lord help us see the full picture of your love for us in Christ's life, death, and resurrection. Thank you for showing love to us when we deserved wrath, the hell of hells, yet you forgive us... and give us the love of love from you, who is the Lord of lords. Thank you Jesus for your awesome grace, your awesome power, and your awesomeness. You truly are the most beautiful, the most lovely savior of the world. Holy spirit teach us in the word how to see you everyday, help us glorify God in all that we say, think and do. In the name of Jesus Amen

Heart is where the Home is.

Most people have heard the proverb home is where the heart is. What if we reversed this thought? Heart is where the home is? What if our hearts change and are dependent on where we call home? Maybe they are mutually dependent on each other that where my affections are directed my home is there, and where my home is my affections are directed towards there. Because   I find a scary sense of security in my home whose foundation is 6 dry rotted tires. Why are my affections directed towards this temporal  home of mine? Maybe I see this aluminum box, and it is more of a reality to my earthly self than the God who created me? Maybe this is part of the earthly-ness that Paul calls for believers to put to death in  Colossians 3?

Colossians 3

Put On the New Self

 ¹If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. ³For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. ⁴When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory.

 ⁵ Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. ⁶ On account of these the wrath of God is coming. ⁷ In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. ⁸But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. ⁹ Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices ¹⁰and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. ¹¹ Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all.

 Apparently, as a follower of Christ I have died...How does my apparent death change the way I view this dead life? The things that my dead self once lived for, must die too. It makes no sense to feed a dead man, so why do we go on feeding our dead nature with the sins that it gains its strength from? My alive life is with Christ, therefore my home/heart is Him, not this dead world. My affections, my time, my strength, my being, is to be for Him... not for the frail Aluminum box.   

Defining my concerns

It happened on a casual Friday, visiting family for the Labor Day Holiday. My over powered phone in the land of non 3gness, rang with bright joy that I had a new voice mail.

I listened, I waited, I typed in my passcode, I waited, I listened, then my news; My park manager, in her 80 something voice, notified me that my water had been turned off because my home was leaking.

Now this news is nothing new to me. When this motorhome was made I think it leaked. Yet I was still troubled. I was concerned about my stuff, my house. What do I have that is going to be fixed by my anxiety?!

After a short walk doing worry lane, the Holy Spirit showed me the sinful road I was traveling, and the extra weight I was bringing with me on when I was with my family.

When I got home, I found no damage only a plastic water line that had broken. So one Labor day of labor and my water concerns were laid dormant once again.

Why do we worry? Didn't Jesus say he would take care of us? That his provision is much better then our revision? This home has taught me a lot of about where my security, and hope is to be. I hope we all are growing in our trust in the provision of God. As our trust in him grows the control we need, is released.