To Encourage You

1 John 3:1 “See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!”

Do you think much about why you do what you do or think what you think?  There are obviously lots of motivations for our life. The motivations for working at a job may be many. Perhaps we just love the work and look forward to doing what we do because we have a passion for it – it’s interesting, or rewarding, or exciting.  Maybe we’re motivated by the simple fact that it puts food on the table, or we are responsible for supporting a family and we want our children and spouse to have certain benefits in life.  We are motivated to get out of bed in the morning because we have a job to go to, or we have kids that need us to take care of them, or maybe we’re looking forward to getting ready for or going on a vacation we’ve been excited about for months.  For the believer, however, the underlying motivation for what we do and how we do it should be the love of Christ that is showered on us every moment of every day. 

The Bible says that His love is lavished on us. His love toward us is whole-hearted, committed, fervent, and forever.  The Father gave His Son to die for us, and the Son willingly humbled Himself and went to the cross for us so that we could be called children of God! And as John marveled in the verse above – and that is what we are! 

Can you imagine – children of the Creator, the all-powerful and infinite God of heaven and earth?  “He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13).  If this has happened to you, you realize that you are in a kingdom, and more than that, children of a very great King Who wants only what is best for you, Who meets every need you have, and Who has promised us a future of blessings that we can’t even imagine, for they are that awesome.  And all of it is undeserved and wholly a gift of His grace.  Like the prodigal that came to realize “I am no longer worthy to be called your son,” the believer should be overwhelmed that the Father has not only forgiven him or her, but has embraced them with all the love that He has for Jesus, His only begotten Son. 

The person that gets a grasp of this is increasingly motivated to do whatever he or she does for the glory of God.  What can we ever do to repay our great God for the love He has already lavished on us and promised to continue to pour out on us for all eternity?  It’s impossible to repay Jim, but it is possible to love Him and to act in that love day by day in all that we do. 

May our great Father help us to make the command that, “whether (we)eat or drink or whatever (we) do, (to) do it all for the glory of God” (I Corinthian 10:31) true in our lives and reflective of our motivation for living.