Motivation 2

[HKHaugan]

In the last writing the emphasis was on motivation.  I concluded what Scripture tells us and that is---Jesus’ motivation for all He did was His Father.  If you count Jesus’ references to His Father in John’s Gospel alone you will find they number 131.  That has to say something about Jesus’ conscious motivation.  The relational emphasis is carried as a command from the Father on two occasions, Jesus’ Baptism (Mt.3:17) and His Transfiguration (Mt.17:5).   In both the Father said Jesus was the Son He loved, that He was pleased with Him and therefore we should listen to Him.  The Father indicates Jesus is the focal point for spiritual grounding in mind, heart and spirit.  He is the starting place for coming to grips with everything from the reason for all existence right down to being self-conscious individuals living a 24/7 life.

 

The importance of keeping Jesus central is the Father’s words and His words are given with three basic relational revelations, His identity, His love and His command. 

 

First, His identity.  He is not only a father, He is The Father, the pattern for all that that word means.  He is The Father of The Son.  It is a unique relationship that frames for us the heart of all relationships and exemplifies for us our parental order.  When Jesus is asked to show the Father He replies that when you have seen Him you have seen the Father (Jn.14:9).  “When a man believes in me he does not believe in me only, but in the One who sent me.  When he looks at me he sees the One who sent me (Jn.12:44-45).”  When we listen to Jesus we are listening to the Father.  When we read Jesus’ words we are catching a glimpse of the Father’s mind, heart and spirit.  When we capture the essence of Jesus’ attitude we are in the Father’s bosom as was Lazarus in Jesus’ parable (Lk.16:19-31).  He disciplines and He has compassion both of which mean we can turn to Him as our authority (Heb.12:6-7) and can go to Him for comforting as ‘Daddy’,  the meaning of the word ‘Abba’ (Rom.8:15).

 

Second, His love.  The Father loves in a way that is far beyond anything we as humans can fathom.  The best way to understand the word ‘love’ is to take Jesus’ teaching and how He lived that out.  “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.  Now remain in my love.  If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Fathers’ commands and remain in His love (Jn.15:9-10).”  What Jesus is telling us here is that obedience to His teachings guarantees His love, which is the Father’s love.  What this means for us is that we have to cancel any human definition of love in order to allow the pure love of God to be experienced.  It is a love that transcends emotional affection, familial bonding and physical attraction.  It is the kind of love that reshapes our entire being.  It is a spiritual love that the Holy Spirit brings into our hearts that can come only through obedience.  It reshapes our emotionality, our intellect and our spirituality.  What God’s love (‘agape’ in the Greek) is, is His natural presence caring, acting, disciplining, giving affection and motivating as only He can.  Therefore it is up to us to just be obedient and let Him happen.  A very simple way to experience God’s love is to keep reading His Word and apply it each day.

 

Third, His commands.  The Father knows everything.  There is nothing in the broad universe that escapes His consciousness.  Every cell in every structure throughout all space and beyond is personally in His mind.  Luke 12:7 tells us that even the hairs on our head are numbered.  So when He speaks in His Word He sets the stage for Him speaking in our life.  His Word is our command post.  It is the headquarters where we receive our marching orders, if I can use that military figure.  And there is more confidence when we repeat that euphemistic expression, ‘Your wish is my command.’

 

To read the opening of Genesis rightfully erodes our reliance on pride infected intellect.  “God said…’ and Creation took place.  By His command, His Word ‘Let there be…’, we can see the foundation for intellect, heart and spirit as each of us created in His image is transformed by Him to be reflections of His being.  The rest of the Bible follows in logical sequence.

 

So if Jesus is the One in whom the Father has placed the exact representation of Himself then all His authority in Heaven and earth placed in Jesus’ hands makes sense (Mt.28:18).  By being disciples of Jesus that makes us disciples of the Father in the Spirit.  So the best way to be human is to be obedient to Jesus and His Word.  It is in that obedience we restore our sin-broken intellect to God-thought in Scripture, sin-isolated heart to God-love in Jesus and sin-satisfying spirit to God-life in the Holy Spirit.

 

Now we have the formula, the motivation and the power for restoring the image the Lord God intended in Creation.  Motivation is the key word for us now.  It is motivation that keeps us from being spectator disciples, pew sitters and spiritual non-combatants in a dark ‘principalities and powers’ world.  Next we want to explore the specifics of living a Spirit motivated life.