Murky Motivations?

When serving the Lord, what is your motivation? Is it honestly to serve God, or do you simply desire the reputation of one who seeks and serves the Lord? I must confess that motives are difficult to judge because our hearts are so complex, and they are nearly impossible to judge in others (thankfully, it is not our job!). When I consider the reasons I seek to write a meaningful paragraph in this space there are many: I have been asked to do so; I want to do a good job; and hopefully it can be encouraging or challenging in its use for God’s kingdom in your lives. None seem negative on the surface, but what if I was trying to impress anyone reading with whit and wisdom because my name is attached to the end of this piece? It is easy for us who serve others in the church to let our ministries serve as a tool to advance our name rather than Christ’s. It is at the point when that desire exceeds the desire to serve God when it becomes sin. Our job is to give God glory, not ourselves. This is exactly what was going on in Acts 5 with Ananias and Sapphira. In the first eleven verses of the chapter, we learn that they sold a piece of their property. They gave half of the profit to the church, but they told the church they gave it all. Peter was clear that they were under no obligation to give it all to the apostles (v. 4). The problem was not that they did not give enough, but that they wanted others to think they were more generous than they actually were. This is why they lied. What took place is astonishing: Ananias and Sapphira dropped dead as a result of God’s judgment! We must believe that God has the authority to judge the hearts of men, and we must be thankful that He is completely just and right in doing so with perfect timing. The challenge for us is not to give all of our possessions to the elders at your church. It is to examine our hearts as we serve God in this church. Are you serving the Lord wholeheartedly or are there times when you serve out of obligation or out of a desire to be known as a person who is a servant? The answers may not be simple. We may never have completely pure motives, but we must serve out of a heart that seeks to primarily glorify God rather than self.

P.S. I’m really thankful that God is gracious and has not caused me to drop dead when my motives have been less than honest! This raises the question of why God judged Ananias and Sapphira in the way He did. I do not pretend to know why, but it can be observed that God seems to judge more acutely and immediately during the times in history when God’s Spirit has been at work in extremely clear ways. This incident is in close proximity to God pouring out the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2). Another example is God’s judgment of Achan in Joshua 7, which occurs after God’s work in tearing down the walls of Jericho.