Wrestling With Our Motives
Motive is a very difficult thing to understand or even recognize in ourselves.
It’s difficult to parse out and to change. Shifting your motives is a nearly impossible thing to do. So, what if we stay paralyzed because we can't get the right motives for the rest of our lives? What if, in trying to fix our motives, we miss everything God has for us? The good news is that you're never going to have perfect motives.
I was nervous about signing my first book contract because I feared my motives weren’t perfect. I was neck deep in discipleship, and I only wrote books because they had helped so many people. I didn't mean to start a public ministry. Other people wanted my tools and resources, and that grew from there. I wrestled with it so much that I didn't think I should do it.
I didn’t want it to change me or my relationship with God, and I didn’t want my faith to be about business.
So, I asked a mentor if he thought I should publish my work. He said, “Jennie, that's probably why you're gonna get to do this. And if you ever stop wrestling with that, you need to quit.”
We wrestle with our motives forever.
Another incredibly famous pastor I respect said he quit after writing his first book because he questioned his motives. He said his students would praise him for what a great professor he was. So, he realized that he’d have to fight his motives anywhere he went.
Even if you’re not in the public eye, you still have motives when considering what God is calling you to do. Whatever God calls you to do, there’ll always be some selfish ambition in your flesh. Hence, you have to know what you're tempted to love more than God.
When I got into this, the thing I probably prized the most was people-pleasing. And I had to deal with it fast. God broke me of it. It was a miserable, publicly embarrassing, and humiliating situation. I disappointed every person I respected, and my closest people were frustrated. I was paralyzed by embarrassment.
I lost all the people I would want to please at once. That was the greatest gift because I saw that I was okay, to some degree. I lost my motive to make people proud of me and love me. Yet, I was still breathing. I loved God, He loved me, and I wasn't letting Him down.
There was something freeing about being right with God and nobody else.
God will purify our motives as we go.
We will obey Him and do all the things He's called us to do.
And He will sanctify us as we go.
We are becoming more like Him as we walk with Him. God is molding us into who He wants us to be, and He will use the races that He's called us to run to do it. God does this to make you holier and dependent on Him every day.
We run our races to give hope to others so we can watch the greatness of God at work. We run these races to please God, and our motives get sorted out as we run them. When you run the race before you, you inevitably throw off the sin and burden that so easily entangles you. You fix your eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of your faith, because you need Him.
Jesus doesn't need us, but He invites us so we can change and grow up in Him and with Him. He invites us so that we ask Him to guide us. We suddenly become unselfish because we care more about the people we're serving and loving. We care more about fixing our eyes on Jesus and the race that He set before us than we do our motives. And so, our burden falls off.
I don't know where you find yourself in that race, but something will discourage you at some point. You will feel like you can't go any further. Maybe you're on the side of the road, and you feel completely out of the game.
Jump back in.
You may have a thousand reasons for not jumping back in. You might think God doesn't want you, or your motives don't feel pure enough. Maybe you've tried this before, and you've been disappointed. Perhaps you don't want to hope or dream again because it feels like it always fails.
The race is not about us winning.
It's about getting connected with God and with each other.
God has great things for you to do. They may not be great in the world's eyes, but they will be great in heaven's eyes. And that's the perspective we have to keep. God wants to work miracles through you.
He wants to heal your neighbors and bring them into relationship with Him. He wants to change people's lives through your faithfulness. Loving your neighbor or starting a spiritual conversation could change generations of her family. And this is why we obey. We obey because we don't know the stories God is writing. We don't know the generations that could be shaped by those stories. So, we get in the race with our people and do the best we can.
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MADE FOR THIS PODCAST
If you liked this content, you’ll love this season of the Made For This Podcast where we’ve been going through Jennie’s book Restless. Available anywhere books are sold!
