Motivation; Spiritual Growth Dynamics: 1
John 2:13
1 John 2:13 NASB “I am writing to you, fathers,
because you know Him who has been from the beginning. I am writing to you,
young men, because you have overcome the evil one. I have written to you,
children, because you know the Father.”
The doctrine of motivation
- Motivation comes from a Latin word which means to
move, it relates to that which moves us or provides the basis of reason for
movement in any direction; that which moves us to do something. Motivation
can come from any number of sources. We can be motivated emotionally; we
are motivated for physical reasons. Our motivation can be well thought and
reasoned understanding of something, based on knowledge. As we think about
the Scriptures and understand exactly what God expects and has instructed
us, on the basis of that new thinking, the renovation of the thought in
our souls, then we will move in a particular direction. Too often we are
motivated by the sin nature. The sin nature at its very core is driven by
a lust pattern. The lust pattern is the basic motivation of the sin nature
and there are categories of lust pattern. The lust patterns are what move
us when we are operating under the control of the sin nature. In contrast,
what we are told in Scripture is that motivation in the Christian life
should come from thinking, from thinking doctrine that is resident in our
soul and has renovated the thought in our soul so that we are thinking
God’s thoughts after Him.
- In the spiritual life motivation comes either
from doctrine in the soul under the filling of the Holy Spirit or it comes
from the sin nature and the cosmic system; one or the other, it is not
both.
- The starting point for the believer is grace.
Grace is our motivation. Grace is understanding
the reality and significance of forgiveness: forgiveness of sin at the
cross and forgiveness of sin in our post-salvation spiritual life.
Ephesians chapter one tells us: “In Him we have redemption through His
blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His
grace.” Then Ephesians 4:32 NASB “Be kind to one another, tender-hearted,
forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you.” The
model is always what Christ did on the cross. It drives our attention to
the work of Christ on the cross. That is to motivate us and shape how we
forgive one another, how we love one another. All of that comes from
understanding the dynamics of the cross. When the cross is not taught,
when the plan of salvation is not taught, people don’t have a clue about
grace, they can’t be motivated from the right motivation, and everything
ends up being entertainment and being emotional.
The doctrine of adversity and stress
- There are two kinds of pressures in life. The
first is adversity which is defined as the inevitable outside daily
pressures of life that attack and seek to penetrate the soul. Adversity
can come in two categories: prosperity and suffering. On the other hand we
have stress. Stress is our reaction, the internal response to outside
pressure. Adversity is the inevitable outside pressure; stress is the
optional inside pressure of the soul caused by reaction to the external
pressures of adversity. When the believer who is negative to doctrine
allows adversity to penetrate his stream of consciousness, to penetrate
his soul, then it is either converted into arrogance or emotional sins.
- Adversity as the outside pressure on the soul has
two categories. The first is suffering from the law of volitional
responsibility or divine discipline. Galatians 6:7 NASB “Do not
be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also
reap.” God often allows certain negative consequences to come into play as
a result of bad decisions that we make. The second category is suffering
for blessing, and that accelerates spiritual growth. God brings suffering
into our lives to give us an opportunity to apply the doctrine that we
have learned so that we can grow. That is what James is pointing out in
James 1:2. As we go through the test we develop perseverance and endurance
and applying doctrine and the result is that we gradually grow, increment
by increment.
- Adversity is what the external circumstances of
life do to us and stress is what we do to ourselves.
- Adversity, then, is inevitable. We all go through
various forms of adversity and we may not be able to tell when another
person does because they have it together. Often we never know the kinds
of adversity that other people have gone through in their life or may be
going through now. They keep it quiet, they focus on the Lord, and they
apply doctrine. Often the maturing believer who is applying doctrine is
set up as a target by immature believers who say: Well you really don’t
know what I’m going through.
- Stress in the soul always results in sin nature
control because we are trying to handle life’s problems from our own resources, we are not handling them on the basis of the
spiritual assets that God has given us. Stress in the soul, if left
unchecked through confession of sin and application of doctrine, causes
the believer to reverse his spiritual growth and begin to slide backward
in his spiritual life and eventually become a failure in the spiritual
life. Ongoing stress handled through sin produces instability and produces
Christians that can, even at the extreme form, imitate demon possession,
and it is all the result of stress in the soul.
- Stress perpetuated in the soul means failure to
glorify God and therefore spiritual failure, and at the judgment seat of
Christ everything is burned up, rewards are lost and taken away, and they
enter into heaven, yet as through fire. Stress means that we fail to
achieve God’s purpose in our life as believes.
- The only solution is the divine solution, and the
human solution is no solution. All the systems that man comes up with to
handle life’s problems aren’t a solution.
- It is this outside pressure from adversity and
prosperity that provides the believer with the opportunity to grow and to
apply doctrine. It is a test. A test is defined as any situation that
calls for the application of doctrine. It is the opportunity to apply
doctrine or to rely on our own resources, to depend on divine viewpoint or
human viewpoint motivation. After salvation God’s plan is to take us to
spiritual maturity. He is going to test us in small ways and large ways. These
are called tests of faith, tests of doctrine that we have learned and have
in our soul. It gives us an opportunity to apply doctrine. At that point
the issue is volition: are we going to apply doctrine under the filling of
the Holy Spirit and trust God, or are we going to try to rely on our own resources which means sin nature control. If we go forward
in the spiritual life under the filling of the Holy Spirit by applying
doctrine then it produces divine good. We begin to experience the abundant
life and our life becomes evidenced or testimony in the angelic conflict
to the grace of God. It produces steadfast endurance and that leads to
maturity, according to James 1:2-4. On the other hand, when we are in
negative volition that produces sin, human good and temporal or carnal
death—the faith that doesn’t produce is a dead faith. It leads to weakness
and instability. That then in turn leads to sustained carnality, spiritual
regression, and a hardened heart, and before long we are no longer
interested in doctrine.