Is There Only One Motivation for Obedience?

For Christians who know they are saved by grace and not by works, there is always a fundamental question that arises: Why should I obey God?  This question is not about whether Christians should obey God (all agree on that), but about the proper motivation for obeying God.  What should drive our sanctification?

Some have answered this question by suggesting that there is only one proper motivation for our obedience, namely our justification.  We should look back at the finished work of Christ with gratitude and appreciation, and this will drive us to follow and obey him.

Now, there is much that is commendable about this motivation.  Indeed, I would argue that the finished work of Christ, and his great mercy and grace toward us, is the core motivation for our obedience.

But, what is interesting is that the Bible does not offer just this single motivation. God’s word offers a multiplicity of reasons for our obedience that touch different aspects of our life and that motivate us from a variety of angles.  In this way, God creates an argument for our obedience that is broader and wider and more difficult for us to escape or ignore.   Continue at  Michael J. Kruger

Are You Righteous?

“For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” 2 Corinthians 5:21

Ethical behaviorism is a term Psychologists use which defines righteousness exclusively in terms of what a person does or does not do. In this sense, a righteous person is one who does the right things and avoids the wrong things. An unrighteous person is one who does the wrong things and avoids the right things. Defined this way, righteousness is a quality that can be judged by an observation of someone’s behavior. Virtue and uprightness is purely a matter of outer conduct without any hint of what goes on inside you.

William Hordern illustrates well how this definition of righteousness is the definition held by the world:

The law enforcement institutions of society are concerned with right behavior. They do not care why people obey the law, so long as they obey it. The person who breaks no laws is righteous in their sight regardless of the motivation that produces law abiding behavior.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus breaks radically from this definition of righteousness. He cuts through the outer behavior of a person and looks at what’s in the heart. Jesus insists that righteousness is not simply a matter of what we do or don’t do but rather a question of why we do or don’t do it.

A few years ago when my boys were younger, they would gather all the neighborhood kids in our yard to play football. And every once in a while a pass would be overthrown, landing in my neighbors grass. My neighbor (an angry, grumpy, old curmudgeon) would always come outside and scream at my boys and their friends, threatening to confiscate the ball if it happened again. My boys, being young at the  time, would always come inside with tears in their eyes, lips quivering, because they were scared of our neighbor. Well, being the scrapper that I am, there were countless times that I wanted to march over to my neighbor and give him a piece of my mind. I wanted to make it clear that if he ever yelled at my boys again…well, you get the idea. I never did, though. I would stare him down from time to time, but I never went next door to let him have it. Some would assume that my refusal to let loose on my neighbor was an act of righteousness: I was exercising love, patience, self-control. But was it?  Keep Reading >>>