Daily Word of Grace # 189 (December 4, 2020)
More often than not human motives are mixed. Once in a while we may do something kind for someone else with a genuine motivation of love—but more often than not there are other ingredients mixed into our motives—traces of grandstanding or self-interest, ulterior motives of which we may not even be aware, some kind of strings attached, some kind of catch. And we can detect these mixed motives in others too, usually the same mixed motives that lurk within ourselves (so annoying isn’t it?). But when it comes to God, the one and only motivation is love because “God is love” (1 John 4:8 and 16). The one and only motive for Jesus’ incarnation, death, and resurrection is God’s love, as Jesus himself famously told a Pharisee named Nicodemus, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life” (John 3:16). God’s love for you has no mixed motives, no grandstanding, no self-interest, no ulterior motives, no strings attached, no catch. And in response to this kind of love from God we are called to share that kind of love with others—or as the Apostle Paul put it, “Let love be genuine” (Romans 12:9). The paramount motivation is always love.
Love and Prayers,
Dave