But I digress.  Friday – 13 hours in uncomfotable seats.  Saturday – 7 hours in those same uncomfortable seats (but with even better content than the night before!) and then Link’s birthday party from 4-getting home at 8:30.   Today – Jackson woke up puking, Claire’s either been sleeping or screaming, we did laundry, we went swimming, and I went to Sam’s to get a new battery for my truck.  And now, at 9:15pm, I am writing this and Leah and Lincoln are scrambling to put together an assignment that’s due tomorrow.

In the midst of making copies of pictures for said assignment, Leah said, “I wish we would’ve thought about this earlier.”  To which I replied, “I did put it on my list this morning…but I haven’t looked at it in…….8 hours.” Oh, the to-do list.  Right.  That has a bunch of stuff on it that got pushed to the side by other stuff, even though I’ve been thinking about it non-stop.

And THAT, my friends, is when the thought hit me:  When everything gets crazy and my time seems to be gobbled up by anything and everything, my tendency is to drop people first so that I can focus on getting all of my tasks done. OR, the tasks go because people present the most pressing demand, but my mind isn’t really with them, it’s still thinking about how to get the tasks done (which is how today went).

What is it for you?  What goes first when your time gets squeezed?

Is it people?  Is it tasks?  Is it hobbies?

If you’re a minister (and even if you’re not technically), here are 3 things you CANNOT afford to drop when life gets crazy hectic (and I know this isn’t easy!):

1) Your relationship with Christ, which is grounded in time in the Word and prayer, through which you submit to the Holy Spirit, without whom you will have no real success in ministry.

2) Your relationship with your family (if you have one).  At 28, I’m blessed to already be thinking that at the end of my life, whether I got a few extra things done on a Sunday afternoon doesn’t amount to a hill of beans compared to spending that same time with my wife or playing with my boys or taking Claire so Leah can have some rest from the demands of being a nursing mother.

3) The people you minister to.  Again, in the end, your time invested with your people will have a much greater eternal significance than whether or not you got that Powerpoint to run just right or you made an amazingly awesome flier for the event two months down the road or a thousand other small, menial tasks that could probably be done well (or at least done) by less-busy others, without taking so much time away from your people.  Yeah, they’ll notice the typos.  They won’t be WOWed by the so-so looking flier.  But they will look past all that stuff if they know you care deeply about them and their walk with Christ because you’ve shown it with your time. YOU are the one who ministers to them, not the programs or the lights or the powerpoints or the “et cetera.”

Notice a pattern?  Relationships.  Is it coincidence that God said, “It’s not good for man to be alone…”?

I…think…NOT.  (What’s that from?)

Alright…. I’m going to get back to the to-do list (which this post was not on).

After I pray with my boys before they go to sleep.

So what is the jungle man debate?

Since Christians believe that Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life and no one comes to the Father but through (Him)” and that God is a merciful and just and forgiving God, the heart-wrenching dilemma of the fate of the jungle man is continually discussed and debated, and often times, given a pat answer to…something like, “God is sovereign and good, so He’ll take care of it.” While that statement is true, I don’t think the jungle man question is without a biblical answer.

For those of you who don’t know, the jungle man dilemma goes something like this:

“I know salvation is through faith alone in Christ alone, but what about the man in the jungle who has never heard and, thus, has never had a chance to believe? Won’t God save that guy? Wouldn’t God be unfair if He doesn’t? Does he have to call upon the name of Jesus Christ? Or is there some way in which God reveals enough of himself to the jungle man so that the jungle man can have faith in Him even if he doesn’t know His NAME?”

First, let’s be upfront about option 2…what could be called the “salvation revelation” – God just reveals enough of himself to some random guy in the jungle and he is saved.

My sovereignty-of-God loving friends will probably not find any problem with this, ultimately saying that God is God and He can save His elect however He chooses to save them (use of the word “chooses” very purposeful – wink wink). My free-will loving friends will probably find an issue with this if they will think deeply enough about it, namely, that it would be supremely unfair to the other jungle people if God only revealed Himself in such a way to a few and not to all.

Forget theological framework! What does the Bible say?

Act 4:12, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.”

This is applicable because many times the argument made is that the jungle man may have a “concept of Jesus” without knowing His name. That’s true. But if you know your Bible, you know that God takes names very seriously, sending angels to make sure certain babies are born with certain names (John the Baptist and Jesus himself) and changing the given names of others after giving them specific callings, such as being the father of His nation (Abram to Abraham) or His primary missionary to the Gentiles (Saul to Paul).

As the old hymn goes, “there’s just something about that name.” That “something” is that it’s the only name given among men by which we must be saved.

There’s also Romans 1:18-21, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. For his invisible attributes, namely, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly perceived, ever since the creation of the world, in the things that have been made. So they are without excuse. For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.”

In other words, God’s primary revelation of Himself to all men through the awesomeness of creation leads not to salvation, but to condemnation.

If you’ve ever had your heart stirred by the beauty of the stars or your smallness and fragility magnified by the Grand Canyon or the mountains before you, then you have perceived God’s eternal power and divine nature…and that perception of God is just enough to secure your guilt.

God’s revelation of Himself that leads to salvation is through the Word of Christ. So says, Romans 10:17, “So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

Here’s the point: As believers who have been commissioned to be preachers of the Word of Christ (Romans 10:9-17), who are called ambassadors for Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20), and who are given the command of Jesus to go and make disciples of all nations (Matthew 28:18-20), we are not given the luxury of believing that salvation will come to the jungle man by any other means than God’s revelation of Himself through missionaries bringing with them the “Word of Christ.”

That brings us to option 1) Won’t God, in his mercy and fairness, allow the jungle man who has never heard of Jesus to get into Heaven? What if the missionaries never get there?

Here’s why I believe the answer is “No, the jungle man will not go to Heaven if he dies without ever hearing about Jesus Christ.”

Matthew 28:18-10, “ And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

Romans 10:13-17, “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’
How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching? And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’
But they have not all obeyed the gospel. For Isaiah says, ‘Lord, who has believed what he has heard from us?’ So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”

2 Corinthians 5:18 – 20, “All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation. Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us. We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.”

Here’s why I quoted these Scriptures first – I want you to see the necessity of the believers’ going and telling in order to “make disciples,” have others “call on the name of the Lord,” and for God to “make his appeal through us.”

Now, if all who never hear of Jesus go to Heaven, wouldn’t it seem like the best evangelistic technique would be for believers across the world to KEEP THEIR MOUTHS SHUT ABOUT JESUS?

If this life is a “vapor” as we say it is, a speck on the eternal scale, if ultimate reality is about eternity and not this earth as we say it is, wouldn’t it be far more important for people to never hear about Jesus, thus securing their salvation, than for people to hear about Jesus, giving them the opportunity to reject Him and go to Hell?

This is the danger of the jungle man question and why, whether we like it or not, we cannot assume this man is going to Heaven.

If we do, we hamstring every passage in Scripture that talks about the necessity of going and spreading the Gospel, the Good News, of Jesus’ substitutionary righteous life, death for our sins, and death-defeating resurrection.

That being said, who’s going to go tell the Jungle Man about Jesus? His eternity depends on someone going.

More information can be found at our church blog/website at http://gatheringplacesouth.wordpress.com!

Our sponsor church is The Gathering Place in Pineville, LA.

I don’t think there is any doubt that this verse has been true for us. It is clear and evident that God made us for each other.  You have helped me in so many ways – standing by me when others weren’t, respecting me when I didn’t deserve respect, loving me when I was unlovable, and even rebuking me when I needed rebuking.  I am eternally grateful to God for you, my helper, made for me.

Nine years ago today, on July 27, 2002, when I was just an immature 19 year old boy and you were an incredibly mature 21 year old woman, we exchanged the most beautiful wedding vows ever written.  Those vows have been mutually kept, by God’s grace, in our marriage and were even preserved by God as they were written out and framed, as that was one of the few things that was recovered from our Katrina-flooded apartment.  I love to look at that wedding picture, with those vows written beneath it.  It reminds me of how far we’ve come since that hot, July day, when we ran through the bubbles to our balloon-filled car, and I ran on to the driver’s side, failing that most basic of romantic gestures – opening the car door for you.  What can I say? I was never good at that, and besides, I was ready to get to Vicksburg for the night!  It also reminds me of how blessed I am to have found you and married you at such a young age.  I am so thankful for all of those older, godly couples we consulted who said their only wish was that they had been able to marry sooner…and that we were crazy enough to listen!

Now, when I look at the frame, with visible effects of Katrina, my gazing is almost always interrupted by the voices of our three beautiful children.  I’m inevitably reminded of the struggles and suffering we went through getting them here – from Lincoln’s emergency cerclage to Jackson’s false, but oh-so-real miscarriage, to the timing of Claire’s positive pregnancy test right after I lost my job – and how all of that brought us closer together, strengthened our faith in Christ, and helped us to treasure each one of our kids as a special and unique gift from God.  I could not have asked for a better mother for my children.

No doubt, we’ve made mistakes along the way.  We’ve had our hard times.  We’ve been mad at each other, mind-cussed each other, I hurt your feelings over corn in my Hamburger Helper, and you hurt mine while trying to encourage me.  I still don’t clean up that much and am more of a slob than you’d like and you still get anxious and over-react, but we’ve pretty much learned to laugh it off as who we are.   I love that in spite of our extreme differences – you are a super-organized, OCD, Type-A and I’m an unorganized, ADD, Type-B – we rarely fight and that it has been those differences that have helped us the most, particularly in the circumstances where one of those personalities was needed.  But through the mistakes, through the hard times, through the adjustments to life with each other, through the good times and the blessings, through all the schooling and job changes and moves, there are a few things that are unshakably true:

After nine years, I love you more now than I did on the altar.  After nine years (and 3 pregnancies!), you’re still the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.  After nine years, you’re my favorite thing – living or nonliving.  After nine years, I would hope for ninety-nine more.  After nine years, I want you to know that I would do it all again because it is my belief that we are the most perfectly matched couple the Earth has ever known and I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what I would do without you.

Thank you for walking with me.  Thank you for loving me.  Thank you for loving our kids.  Thank you most of all for loving Jesus most of all.  That’s what attracted me to you first and what I still love about you most.  I will gladly play second-fiddle in your heart to Him.

Proverbs 31:10-11, 28-30, “An excellent wife who can find? She is far more precious than jewels.  The heart of her husband trusts in her, and he will have no lack of gain… Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her:  ‘Many women have done excellently, but you surpass them all.’  Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised.”

I read this phrase in his book “Forgotten God” a couple of weeks ago, and I can’t get it out of my head:

“The bottom line is we can easily pursue just about any lifestyle we desire, then find Scriptures to show everyone it’s all right to live that way. But what would it look like to live exegetically?”

For those of you who didn’t take a seminary hermeneutics class, “exegetically” comes from the word exegesis, which means to figure out what the Bible actually says, and then go from there.  In other words, we adjust our thoughts/beliefs/doctrines/theologies to what the Bible says, rather than looking for verses that “prove” what we think about God or how we believe Christianity should operate, or putting our own meanings onto Biblical texts that were never intended by the author (you may have heard this called “prooftexting” or “eisegisis”).

So the heart of Chan’s question is this – What would it look like if we stripped away every preconceived notion and everything our culture has taught us — basically started from scratch — and lived by what the Bible actually says?

How would your life be different?  This is what I’ve been asking myself.  How would my attitude towards material things and money and how I spend my time be different?  How shocked would I be at my own prejudices and thoughts and feelings and desires?

And, probably most importantly, how can I move from the way I’m living now so that there is no dissonance between what the Bible says is ultimate (namely knowing and making known God through Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit) and the things I actually give my resources to?  Because when I’m gut-level honest with myself, those two don’t line up.

Romans 7:21-8:1 sums it up just about perfectly.  “So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ Our Lord!…For there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”

I want to live exegetically, but isn’t it easier not to?

What about you?  What would it look like for you to live exegetically?

Can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.  Said it, even.

Typically, it’s good advice.  Right?  It’s certainly true.  God did give us brains and we should use them.  We should think things through.  We should make decisions based on sound, logical reasoning, research, and experience. But I’m wondering how many of us treat this “saying” more as a rule than a proverb.

A rule is something that we should go by all the time, no matter what.  Drink water. Breathe air.  Hold your breath when under water.  Those are hard and fast rules.  If you don’t, you will die.

A proverb is a more general statement, a “pithy saying” as I’ve heard it called, that applies most, but not all, of the time.  Any good hermeneutics course will teach you that the Book of Proverbs is to be read this way.  How else can we explain Proverbs 26:4-5? Proverbs 26:4, “Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest you be like him yourself.” Proverbs 26:5, “Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own eyes.” (ESV)

So do I answer the fool or not? Or do I just pity him?

Is it a rule of the Christian life that I should always, in every situation, use sound, logical reasoning, research, and experience?  Or is it more of a proverb? Are there times when that kind of thinking gets in the way of “walking by faith”?

I think so.  Not always, of course.  I’m not advocating the mindless Christianity that has become such a blight on the American religious landscape.  But I do believe there are times when God defies our logic and asks us to trust Him.

This “using our God-given brain” thing came to light for me a few weeks ago.  For certain reasons, I have to be vague about the details.  But the gist of it is that it looks like God is moving our church plant to do something that I think is a little crazy.  I mean it’s obvious that He’s doing this.  You know the drill:  un-ignorable “coincidental” circumstances, heart-drawing, and provision.

So my conversation with God went something like this, “God, it looks as if you may possibly be leading us to do this thing that, you know, I don’t really think is that great of an idea.  In fact, Lord-Over-All-Creation-Who-Stands-Outside-Of-And-Governs-Time-Itself, in all my months of church planting experience and reading bits of pieces of books and articles on the topic of building your church, I have seen this is the exact opposite of what we should be doing.  So, God, either show me something in the Bible that will help me make sense of this so that I can get onboard with it, or confirm that I am right and you are wrong.”

Does your “God-given brain” ever seem to be out of sync with what appears to be “God-given direction” in your life?

I prayed that awesome prayer on a Wednesday night after our small group Bible study a few weeks ago.  The VERY NEXT MORNING I read Luke 5, as I am reading through Luke for my own personal devotional reading, and I came across this:

Luke 5:4-6, “And when (Jesus) had finished speaking, he said to Simon, ‘Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.’  And Simon answered, ‘Master, we toiled all night and took nothing! But at your word I will let down the nets.’  And when they had done this, they enclosed a large number of fish, and their nets were breaking.”

As I read that, my newly acquired knowledge of fishing kicked in.  I’ve been an avid fisherman all of 4 months.  And one of the first things I learned is that if you want to actually catch fish, you should probably do it closer to dawn or dusk or just go night fishing, if you’re looking to spend a lot of time on the water.  You’re just not going to catch much during the middle of the day.  It’s too hot.  The fish are deep.

In other words, it’s CRAZY to go to fishing in the middle of the day, especially when you fished all night and morning and didn’t catch anything and you finally got all your gear cleaned up!

Such was Simon Peter’s thinking when he says, “”Master, we toiled all night and took nothing!”

That’s fisherman speak for, “AIN’T NOTHIN’ BITIN’!”

But here’s where Simon Peter got it right and where I was getting wrong, “But at your word I will let down the nets.”

Simon Peter did what Jesus told him to do, even though Simon Peter thought what Jesus was telling him to do was crazy/wouldn’t work/no way!

And a few minutes later, Simon Peter’s pulling in the catch of a lifetime.

All those thoughts went through my head in about 2 seconds as God made it abundantly clear to me that even though I may think it’s crazy to do this particular thing with our church plant, He’s got a plan that I can’t see that starts with something I think doesn’t make sense that will result in people being changed forever by the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

God did give us brains, and we should use them, as long as we remember that the brains He gave us are infinitely smaller than His, that they are constantly ravaged by sinful thoughts, and that it is with our brains that we make the conscious decision to act on the faith God has given us to do what God is telling us to do.

What is it for you?  Is there something God’s calling you to that you think is crazy/doesn’t make sense/won’t work/no way?  If there is, don’t take reading this as mere “coincidence.”  Maybe God held me back a few days from writing this so that you would read it today when you really needed to hear it.  Maybe God’s telling you to trust Him more than you trust yourself.

First, the person in the back didn’t wake up this morning thinking, “Hey, I think today would be a great day for an ambulance ride!” No.  They had plans.  Maybe work.  Maybe play.  Maybe a family outing.  Maybe a get-away-from-family outing.  Maybe they were going fishing. Maybe they were in a wreck.  Maybe they had a heart attack.  Maybe they were struck by lightning.  Maybe this ambulance ride was bound to happen, maybe even sooner rather than later.  I have no idea who was in the back of that ambulance or why they were taking that ride.  But I do know they didn’t expect it.  No one ever does.  It’s always someone else, never us.  Until it is us.  And then it’s us and we’re caught off-guard.  Surprised.  Like, “What?? Me?? How did I end up here??”  Even though people take ambulance rides every day.

And that led to the second thought.  What about when it is my turn?  Wouldn’t I want tens, if not hundreds, of strangers who do not know me or know what’s going on praying to the God who does for my well-fare as the ambulance flies by?  Yeah, I sure would.

Maybe next time you see an ambulance, you’ll thank God for His grace that you aren’t in it this time, you’ll pray for grace for when you are in it, and you’ll pray for grace for the one in it now, hoping that one day they’ll return the favor.

Here’s what I’m starting to realize:  Those “reasons” are just scapegoats.

The truth is we don’t evangelize because we don’t want to.  We don’t want to burden people with living up to the “rules” of the Christian life, because we don’t really understand the Gospel.  Though you want Heaven more than you want Hell for yourself and your family and friends and coworkers, its reality is less real to you than the burdensome rules of legalism.  Your taste of the sweetness of Heaven is not as powerful as your taste of the bitterness of rules and regulations.  We want everyone to go to Heaven, but we don’t want to take away their “fun” on the way.

That’s right.  Deep down, most of us envy the lives of unbelievers who seem to be having so much fun in their sin, while we are stuck on this treadmill of working hard to please God, failure, condemnation, and then rededication.  So, you end up working real hard, but never going anywhere.  Rightfully, you think, “Why would I want to burden anyone with this??”

These rules and regulations were put on you in the name of discipleship, of becoming a “good Christian,” rules such as:  read your Bible every day, spend time in prayer, go to church every time the doors are open, don’t drink, don’t smoke, don’t have premarital sex, don’t hang out with people who do, and when you find people who do, then you should tell them about Jesus, because obviously people who do those things aren’t saved!

In other words, evangelism, itself, has become a rule that we are rebelling against.

So, what’s the real reason we don’t evangelize?

We don’t evangelize because we don’t want to because our flesh, that sinful part of us that we still have to live with, always rebels against law.  That’s the essence of Paul’s message in Romans 7, particularly verse 5, “For while we were living in the flesh, our sinful passions, aroused by the law, were at work in our members to bear fruit for death.”

What a vicious cycle! (Unintentional Austin Powers reference)

We are bound in legalism to rules and regulations which are burdensome, and which we rebel against, so we don’t want to tell people about Jesus Christ and burden them with all these rules AND telling people about Jesus Christ is itself a rule that we are rebelling against.

That’s why it’s so important that we get grace!  When we get grace, we understand that we don’t have to do anything for God to love us and accept us because Jesus Christ has already done everything for God to love us and accept us.  When we get that, rules and regulations go out the window.  They’re replaced by love, which motivates us far more than rules.  And when we really love something, we really do naturally tell people about it, not because we’re guilted into it, but because it brings us joy and we want others to experience and share in that same joy.

And not only does it inform the way I ought to treat my students, it informs the way I should treat my wife and children.  And it informs the way you should treat your employees or those who work under you.

Especially if we want our lives to mirror the Gospel.

What I’ve found, and what I’ve seen growing up in the church with many who have left it, is that the more rules and regulations we lay on others, the more likely they are to rebel against us, especially if those rules and regulations are the foundation for our acceptance and approval.

If all my kids know is that I love them more when they obey me and less when they don’t, they will resent me for it, and will rebel as soon as they get big enough.

If all my students know is that I love them and care for them only when they obey all the rules and don’t have a bad day, then they will misbehave more and not care about a single thing I say.

If all my employees know is that their job is only secure if they do every single thing right and never make any mistakes, then they will be joyless, mutinous laborers who will turn on me as soon as they feel strong enough.

But if my kids know that I love them unconditionally, regardless of their behavior, they will be motivated to behave.

If my students know that I love them and care for them even when they cut up and have bad days, then they will be more likely to listen and learn.

If my employees know that, as a boss, I care about them as people more than I care about their job performance, they will joyfully put everything they have into their work.

Why?  Because love motivates.

Adding rules and regulations works for controlling behavior.  But only so long as it absolutely has to and as long as you or I have the energy to enforce them.  For example, only until my kids move out, or my students move on, or my employees find a new job.

And I know the temptation in correcting misbehavior is to come back stronger with stricter rules and regulations, when maybe what our kids and students and employees need is to know that we love them and care about them no matter what they do.

Now, are we going to get this right all the time?  Nope!  Just in the few hours between my first and second draft of this post, I found myself parenting with little grace.  I was probably too hard on Jack for something that I didn’t need to be quite so hard on him about.  Don’t mistake what I’m saying for this idea that we don’t discipline our kids or students or employees.  God disciplines those he loves (Hebrews 12:7-11), not out of His anger, but for our good.  So, Gospel driven discipline finds its purpose grounded in our eventual good.  Likewise, as parents/teacher/bosses, we ought to discipline those under us, not out of anger or retribution, but out of a desire for their ultimate good.

So, rest in the Gospel and wield whatever authority you may have in such a way that this Gospel shines forth for the glory of God.

A proper understanding of the Gospel is that Christ’s life and death are substitutionary, meaning, as 2 Corinthians 5:21 describes, that Christ lived a sinless life that I couldn’t live and died a sinner’s death which was mine to die, and in exchange, I get Christ’s righteousness and His right standing before God.  Therefore, in order for God to be completely happy with me, I don’t have to do anything at all!  He already is completely happy with me because of Jesus!

So what about good works?  Aren’t good works a part of the equation?  Obviously, we can’t just “get saved” and then go live as sinful as possible a life and expect everything to be alright!  Wouldn’t that be what James calls “faith without works”?

Good works are absolutely necessary, but only as a result of our salvation and right standing before God, not as a means to our salvation and right standing before God.

The good works of our salvation come from one of two sources:  one is that we think if we do a bunch of good stuff and complete a bunch of good tasks, then God will be happy with us.  But if we don’t, he will be upset with us.  If we believe that, then we aren’t really trusting Christ as our righteousness before God!  And the result is we either succeed at accomplishing man-made righteousness and become self-righteous Pharisees or we don’t succeed and become guilt-ridden, joyless slugs.  There is a third option, which is really the result of the second, and that’s to just reject God altogether.

The second source of the good works of our salvation is a response to the beautiful truth that even if I don’t do anything “good,” God will still be happy with me – not because of me, but because of Jesus Christ!   For example, the longer Leah and I have been married, the more I have come to know that she loves me in spite of me.  I know there’s a ton of stuff about me that she would have different.  But, she loves me anyway.  What has motivated me to make changes to the way I operate as a husband and father is not that she is forcing me to change my ways, but the fact that she loves me anyway!  So my knowing that Leah loves me regardless of my annoying habits motivates me to not be so annoying (i.e., not be such a slob!)   In fact, earlier in our marriage, she made quite clear that there were some things that were going to change, and I rebelled against that!

The same is true of our relationship with God.  When we believe that after we get saved, in order to be a really good Christian and pleasing to God, we have to do a bunch of good stuff, we start doing all those things and quickly find that we are burned out, tired, and resentful, and often times, we rebel.

But, when our motivation for good works is not that God will be unhappy with us, but that God is already happy with us and loves us unconditionally in Christ, THEN we have the desire to obey him!  We have the desire to do good works!  And, what we find is that the well of Christ’s love for us is unquenchable, therefore when we dwell in it, we find an unending source of energy for the work that God has called us to.