Motivation

Comedian Emo Phillips once said, “I used to believe that the brain was the most magnificent part of the human body…then I realized…Well, look who’s telling me that!”

God says something similar to Emo in Jeremiah 17.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? (Jer 17:9)

Lately I’ve contemplated the heart and the motivations of the heart. Why do I do the things I do? Actually, the real question that I’ve wrestled with is, “Is it possible for me to do anything with a pure heart?”

Seemingly without exception, I eventually find hedonistic reasons behind my preferences, my actions, my passions and even my loves. Even while I may start out thinking my actions are altruistic and pure, I eventually discover the hidden personal ambition or personal desire.

The harder I try to be pure, the deeper I find my baseness. Why do make the choices that I do with my life? Why do I spend time with the people I choose to? Why do I love my wife? Why do I serve the Lord?

I don’t have any purity in me. My only purity is the same as my only righteousness. It is Jesus Christ. God chose me. Christ died for me. I was imputed with faith in Christ. I was imputed with his righteousness and his purity. For that I am forever grateful.

Sometimes I think that I can be too introspective. Martin Luther suffered from intense introspection until the revelation of Romans 1:17 was fully manifest to him. The just shall live by faith. They don’t live by what they do or how good they are. They don’t live by how pure they are. They live by faith, and Ephesians says that that faith is simply a gift from God.

Martin Luther once said that a Christian should, “sin boldly, yet more boldly still believe.” I pray that I can live boldly and believe more boldly still.