The Love Dare - Day 24

Sometimes, the same action can be done from two entirely different motives.  One time it's done out of love, the next time out of something less.  Let me give an example.  A couple of weeks ago I filled my son's car with gas.  I did it out of love, figuring that my money ought to be directed toward acts of love as well as my time and attention.  Today, I filled his car again, but this fill had nothing to do with love.

It was '80's Day' at my fitness class.  Everybody was to wear 80's style gear and the music of the day would be from the 80's.  For the record: I hate 80's music and I'm not too wild about 80's fashion, but not wanting to be a kill-joy, I scrounged up the closest thing I could find to what I remember the '80's looking like, i.e., high socks, goofy shorts, a sleeveless T, and a headband (mine had Mickey Mouse on it!)  Looking like an idiot, I left the house at 6:10, started Matt's car, and noticed the 'low fuel' warning.  It was empty, and by that I mean EMPTY!  I was faced with two choices: Either go to the gas station dressed as I was or hope I had enough gas to make it back home to let Matt take car of his own gas.  (My kids usually do good at filling their own cars.)  But what if I run out of gas before I get back home?  Do I really want to face the prospect of walking home in these goofy clothes?  So, I blocked out thoughts of dignity and went to the gas station wearing the outfit in this picture.  There was a burly guy next to me, filling up his humongous truck, and I was right beside him wearing fern covered shorts and a Mickey Mouse headband.  I tried not to make eye contact, and I'm pretty sure he tried too!

So what does this have to do with the Love Dare?  Well, it's a roundabout way of getting to a key question.  Why do we believers do the things we do for other people?  Is it because we want to reflect the love of Jesus?  Or is it for another reason - maybe to look good, to earn brownie points, to impress somebody, to manipulate them into doing something, to feel superior, to check it off our list, or maybe to make God happy?  If we operate out of this second set of reasons, we've got a problem.  We might be negating our good deeds.  God looks not only at our actions, but at our motives.  If you don't believe that, check out Isaiah 10:5-19 (especially verses 6-7 and verse 12) where God sends Assyria to execute judgment on Israel and then punishes Assyria for doing it.  Why?  Because they did it with the wrong motives!  Or check out any of the following: Proverbs 16:2 ("All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but the LORD weighs the motives."), 1 Corinthians 4:5 ("Therefore do not go on passing judgment before the time, but wait until the Lord comes who will both bring to light the things hidden in the darkness and disclose the motives of men's hearts; and then each man's praise will come to him from God."), or James 4:3 ("You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures.")  All these verses hinge on our motives, and they make it clear that God looks not only on our actions, but on why we do them.  Romans 14:23 says, "Whatever is not from faith is sin."  In other words, our motives matter!

Do we demonstrate love to people because we love Jesus and want to reflect His character and His values?  Or is it something else that spurs our 'acts of love'?  God, help us to love people from pure motives.  We can fool people, but God sees our motives, and bad motives can make us look silly!  Really!  On believers, like us, those old motives look terribly outdated!