Motives

D.C. Talk sang (long ago) about the motives behind playing in a Christian band, and the insecurity inherent in mixed motivation. My sister bought me that CD for my birthday, replacing the audio tape of it that we'd shared back in the 20th century.

Is this one for the people? Is this one for the Lord? Or do I simply serenade For things I must afford? You can jumble them together My conflict still remains Holiness is calling In the midst of courting fame

Ultimately, the song doesn't answer its own questions, except for an expression of trust in God, which is pretty good as far as not having concrete answers goes. For me, there's two major applications.

First, and this was a liberating realization I came to last winter, mixed motives explains the unacceptability of our sacrifices before God. The very best things that we do in our lives - whether it's helping an old lady across the street or giving our money to starving children - those very things are not completely acceptable to God because they are tainted with sin. This is what Isaiah means when he says, shockingly, "all our righteous acts are like filthy rags". I know this sounds condemning, but it's really very freeing; knowing that I can't earn God's favor on my own even at my very best causes me to trust Him more and to hang more tightly to His perfect righteousness. What an exchange: my sin and sinful motivations for Christ's righteousness! After we receive Christ's righteousness, He redeems our lives - "good" and bad - and uses it all to glorify God. If this doesn't make a lot of sense to you, drop me an email me and I'll explain in a little more depth.

The second application is even more controversial, if you will, than the first, and I have conflicting thoughts on this matter. Romans 6 asks and answers the question, "How should we live?", exhorting believers to seek to please God and be led by the Spirit of God in all that we do. However, we also know that we will not be perfect. Applying this to motives, we are to seek to by godly motives, but we know that our motives will never become perfect. My question is, What's the cutoff?

Clearly, if a believer is motivated to strike up a conversation with a stranger out of concern for fellow humans and desire to communicate God's love, he should. What if he's motivated to talk to this particular person because she's a hotty? What if you're motivated to click a link because you think there might be a hotty on the other end? Would you have clicked it if it was a photo of the lovely Yasr Arafat? (Hey, who says blogging isn't interactive communication?). But what about the shades in between? We're pretty good at knowing when we're motivated by lust, pride, concern with others' opinions, etc. But what about when it's a "good deed"? We're already aware that all our motives are going to be at least somewhat mixed all the time, and yet we're commanded to do good. So we go ahead and do good, and pray that God redeems this filthy rag so He can use it for His great patchwork quilt of redemptive history.

Now let's make the situation even grayer: say the action in question isn't something that can be called "good" as an action (though that's quite subjective itself). Say, seeing a movie with some friends. Or walking a certain route, or eating at a certain place. The action could be good (if you're reaching out to someone lonely) or bad (if you're neglecting your responsibilities), but what if it's totally unclear? I've begun to look at my motives a lot more this year, and it's like watching a video of a garbage dump: occassionally there's something worth keeping, but most of it is in the dump for good reason. Yet God chooses to use me... funny.

Normally, I'd put a conclusion here. But I don't have one. I don't have a "thus" or a "therefore". I heard a speaker say recently that mixed motives shouldn't hinder us from doing what we think is the best thing to do. This is probably true, but what if we don't know what the best thing to do is, and what about the fact that we're only interested in doing it in the first place because of our mixed motives? Anyone have an answer to this one?