“‘The master was full of praise. “Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!”’” (Matthew 25:21 NLT)
Why do you do the things you do for God? What’s your end game? Success? Recognition? Accolades? Profit? Praise? Ultimately, are you hoping for a pleasing outcome for you, or are you serving, giving, sacrificing, and celebrating Jesus simply for the gift He is to you? Honestly, sometimes we can get those things confused.
Yes, of course, I want to go to heaven, but is that ultimately my end game? Am I going through the motions of reading, studying, praying, serving, and so forth, just so one day when I die, I can go to heaven? With all that is within me, I certainly hope not! So, why then?
Maybe another way to look at this would be to ask the question: “What is the end game of love?” Why do we love our spouse? Children? Family? Friends? Fellow believers? Neighbors? Ourselves? Paul wrote in Galatians 5:14: “For the whole law can be summed up in this one command: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
What does that mean? It essentially means to love ourselves as God loves us. The word Paul uses in this verse is “agapao ag-ap-ah-o” It’s the highest and best expression of love. It means “to feel and exhibit esteem and good will to a person, to prize and delight in a thing.” (Strong’s) This is love that is based on an act of will, not driven or motivated by emotion. It’s a decision, not a feeling.
Rudolph Dreikurs wrote in his book Children the Challenge: “If you do the right thing, you’ll feel the right way about it.” In other words, we don’t feel our way to right actions, we act our way to right feelings. As it relates to our command to love one another, when we meet someone for the first time, we may or may not have a natural inclination to love them. They may be very different than us and not exhibit characteristics that are appealing to us.
In other words, we may not “feel” love for them; however, our command isn’t to feel love for them, it’s to love them period! What’s my point? In Jesus’ parable in Matthew 25, He gives three servants different amounts of silver with the expectation that they would invest it for his benefit. It doesn’t say how the servants felt about their assignment or even how they felt about their master, only that they were given their assignment “in proportion to their abilities.”
God’s end game for us is that we would love Him as He loves us – voluntarily and without coercion. That we would decide to love Him, not based on how we feel in any given moment, but based on a decision we would make because of all He has done for us. Iain H. Murray wrote: “It is not ‘well done, good, and successful servant’ but ‘well done, good and faithful servant.’”
Ideally, we don’t love to get something, we love to give of ourselves so that God gets something – glory, honor, praise, and eternal worship. If you’re trying to barter with God – “I’ll do good things, if You’ll let me into heaven” – you’re not going to like the outcome. Our endgame must be God’s eternal glory, not just our eternal good.
Food for thought.
Blessings, Ed 😊
Walking With Jesus 