"What's Your Motivation?"

Why have we chosen to be Christians and accept Christ as our Savior? What motivated us to answer his knock? What is our motivation for going about and doing the Kingdom’s business? Why do we faithfully keep Christ’s commandments to us? These are all very important questions that we should ask ourselves.

Every Thursday night we have a men’s fellowship group that meets at the corps. During these fellowship meetings we do different things such as studying the Word, work projects, and fun nights. About three weeks ago we decided that we were going to study commitment and to see if we could find scripture verses that talked about commitment. I think we all started with a concordance to see if we could find the word commitment in the Bible. Well the most we got from that approach was a few verses on committing various sins. The next thing most of us did was to try to find scripture verses that illustrated commitment. I chose to talk about Stephen’s martyrdom in the book of Acts (chapter 7:54-60). I talked about the commitment that Stephen showed bearing his cross and persecution. That he endured to the very end, even asking God to not hold this sin against his murderers. To me this was the ultimate commitment.

We also talked about the costs of the commitment to follow Christ. This is something that I don’t feel we teach enough of. But Christ tells us that we should “Count the costs” of being his disciple (Luke Chapter 15:25-34). We have to give up everything in order to be his disciple. We can not have our hands still clinging to worldly values, possessions, beliefs, but our hands have to be empty so that we are free to do the work of the Kingdom. This is easier said than done for most Christians (including myself), but we need to be very mindful of it. Do you want God to use you for his Kingdom? Give up all that you have and depend solely on him. I think sometimes we feel that as long as we are willing to give up everything then that is ok with God. This definitely wasn’t what the early Christian church believed. They followed Christ’s commandments literally which I feel is something that we need to get back to. The early Christian church followed what Jesus taught literally and followed the spirit of the Mosaic Law. Today I feel that we do the opposite, we choose to follow the spirit of what Christ taught instead of following what he taught literally. But that is a subject for another time.

Eventually we got to the question of motivation. What is our motivation for making the commitment to follow Christ? There were numerous motivations for accepting Christ that were brought forward. The most prevalent of these was fear. Now I feel fear is a very healthy motivation for accepting Christ. Christ tells us in Luke that we should “Fear him who, after the killing of the body, has power to throw you into hell.” So I think fear is a very valid motivation for coming to Christ. But I don’t think fear as a motivation can help us endure till the very end. People who live in fear at some point or another will rise up in rebellion to remove the cause of that fear. We have to transition the motive of fear into love for our Jesus.

Love is the only motivation/reason along with God’s grace that will allow us to endure to the end. So I urge all Christians to continue to grow closer to Christ everyday. Get to know him through reading his word. I think if we make an honest attempt at getting into his word everyday we can only help but get closer to him and grow in a loving relationship with him. God bless and keep fighting!!

"William Booth's Army?"

It is amazing to me to hear different peoples takes on what our “Army” is. It is also equally amazing to hear what they would like it to become or not to become. I have had discussions about this with the “Elders” of our church (corps). One Major that I had this discussion with actually told me that we are still the same “Army” of William Booth’s time. I have to totally disagree. While I know there are numerous salvos out there carrying on the good fight, the majority of corps (at least in the USA south) are still so entrenched in a tradition of “easy believism”. I borrow this term from author David Bercot.

It is so fitting for the corps that I grew up in and I would say also for the majority of American churches. I think others have called it cheap grace also. The popular American Church says all you have to do is believe and you are saved. John 3:16 is the verse that they use as their scriptural basis. We all know what it says, but what a lot of churches fail to teach is what the word believes actually means and stands for in this context. We have stopped teaching that repentance and regeneration are the next steps towards salvation. We as a church also fail to emphasize that we must endure till the end. True belief is followed by action and love. Love for not only Christ but our neighbors as well. If we truly believe then we truly love our Savior. If we truly love our Savior then we will keep his commandments and in so doing our lives will look totally different from what they were and from the rest of the worlds’. The world should be able to look at us and say, “oh, those people are Christians.” How much more powerful would our witness be if that were the case? If we actually start living what the Word teaches us? I know that this is not the case in every corps, but it is the case in a lot of corps. It is easy to tell just test the fruit.

I think when we go out into the world to win souls for Christ the world is looking for something different than what they already have. A lot of us “professing Christians” lives are mirror images of those that are still of the world. When we start critiquing our lives we need to ask ourselves what has Kingdom value and what has worldly value. It is easy to distinguish from the two. One is eternal and the other will die with the rest of the world. Lets concentrate on those things that are eternal!! That is what William Booth’s Army was like. They were all about the Kingdom’s business. God Bless all that you do!!

Hello fellow Bloggers

Just wanted to say hello and see if this thing really works. Welcome to my blogspot. Please stop and feel free to read and post comments as you like. I will be posting halleluah reports, personal thoughts, and various other things from time to time. God Bless and keep fighting the good fight!!!