Life-leading Love

   What do you find motivates you in life? Is it a deadline? Your friends? Your parents? Your social media followers? 

   I've recently been in a season where I've had to look long and hard at what is motivating me. Too often, we run to the things we can see and hear before running to the One who should be our motivator.  

   With school starting up soon, I decided that I needed to have a plan for how I was going to keep my focus on God and make it a habit. I needed to learn how to make Him the constant priority in my life. With the help of my parents, I picked out the study Desiring God by John Piper to do the first semester of school. So far, I've been really enjoying this study and have learned how to link some of the things I already knew in a way that creates an even bigger, more beautiful picture. That is what I would like to share with you today. 

   In the first week, I am examining what my purpose in life is to be and the implications that come with it. There are all sorts of ideas on this, but here is what I came up with: 

Our purpose in life is to love, serve, glorify, and magnify God in all that we do, say, and think. 

This seems pretty basic, right? We just need to do those things, then we'll be good! I believe the answer to that is found in the heart of the questions I asked at the beginning. What is your motivation?

   We know the verse in the Bible that says that we should do everything to the glory of God. I'd like to go back and re-emphasize the word everything. How many of us can say that everything we've ever done has been wholly pleasing to the Lord? I'm pretty sure that's none of us. Because we already have the tendency to focus in on the actions rather than the heart, we have to go back and check it at every moment. Our heart is something that cannot be ignored.

   What everyday activities do you do that could be newly inspired by pursuing God as your motivation? For example, how do you talk to your friends? Is your speech uplifting to each other? What about school or work? What are some ways we can glorify God in those areas?

   Those are just a few places that we can begin to clean up in our own life. But again, I'm writing all this to talk about our hearts. This commandment from God to pursue a life of motivation by Him may seem like a burdensome task. How will we ever do it? The short answer: We can't. The long answer: 1 John 5:3-4.

"For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome. For everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory that has overcome the world-our faith."

These words are powerful. Following Christ doesn't have to be a burden to us! We have someone willing and able to help us along every step of the way. He is the one who will lead us, convict us, and nurture us throughout our life if we are His.

   Because of these things (our purpose, motivation, and renewed hope), we can begin to see what these things look like practically. That is, doing all these things in love. We have all heard the famous love chapter, 1 Corinthians 13. In the first few verses of this, Paul describes what love is not.

"If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing." 

How many of those things are we guilty of doing without love? Granted, some of those things aren't really around today, but let's think about them in today's world. If I memorize my Sunday School verse every week, help out my teachers in class, study in school as hard as I can but don't have love, I am nothing. If I support mission works around the world, serve in my church in some form, and do everything my parents want me to do but don't have love, I am nothing. What if you even have strong faith that God will take you through whatever you're dealing with right now, live a life of minimalism and give all that you don't need to the poor, and go to a third world country as a missionary only to be killed in a year's time? If you don't have love, it doesn't count for anything.

   We live in an age that is based on doing what feels good. We know that. We know that doing things that seem selfless look really good. We attain "good person" status. People look at us and think that we must be this fantastic spiritual person. How many times do we do these things for the praise of others?

   This is why we must come to the heart of the matter. Loving God and glorifying Him is done by keeping Him first in our life. When He drifts off to the side, our purpose in life becomes meaningless. To truly chase after the One who saved us from our desperate place, we DO need to take up our cross and follow Him, but only if in doing so we are loving our Savior.

   Again, what motivates you? Where is your heart at? In what ways can you refocus your life to live out of love?