When you ask “why be moral?” your answer needs to be more than, “Because it’s the right thing to do.” That is circular. What makes something the right thing? What goal does a man achieve by doing right?
Some answer that, “Virtue is it’s own reward.” Others answer that “Morality benefits others, and that is what really matters.”
But what motivation does Scripture offer? Your life. Your reward.
The New Year is coming, and I’m taking steps to make it a year of blessing. I want another year of growing in my passion for Jesus Christ.
Do you ever worry that, like the churches in Revelation, your passion may have become lukewarm? It’s a common concern for Christians. It happened to those early believers, and it can happen to us.
A couple days ago I wrote about my bold position on self-interest in the Bible. I gave verses that point to one’s own life as the standard of value. One reader responded with a set of verses that seem to deny self-interest. Today I’ll explain one of them: 2 Timothy 3:2.
“People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy…”
The verse condemns wicked people for being “lovers of self.”
In light of this verse, should I change my view on self-interest?
This article explains holy self-interest as the correct motivation for being a worshiper of God.
While many agree that there is such thing as holy self-interest, most Christians do not accept holy self-interest as the Christian’s main motivation. The first and most important step in my own life project is to show that it is.
Does God want us to be motivated by his rewards?
For a very long time people have been singing of their great reward. And not only Americans.
The Hebrew book of worship, the Psalms, is prefaced by the following:
Blessed is the man
who walks not
In the counsel of the wicked,
Nor stands in the way of sinners,
Nor sits in the seat of scoffers;
But his delight is in the law of the Lord,
And on his law he meditates day and night.
He is like a tree
planted by streams of water
That yields its fruit in its season,
And its leaf does not wither.
In all that he does, he prospers.
-Ps 1:1-3
Here are 50 of my favorite lines of blessing in the hymns.
