The motivators - Part 1
Gary Webster
Everything in our world is in agitation, pointing to one grand certainty: our Jesus is coming soon!
So what's gone wrong with the harvest? It seems Adventist mission has fallen on hard times in Western countries. Why? Short answer: "The motivators" are missing. "The motivators" drove Paul's mission. If "The motivators" are missing in our lives, we aren't Christians. Found in 2 Corinthians 5, we'll share them in this and a following article next week.
Above all, Paul was motivated, compelled or driven to reconcile people to God by the love of Christ (see 2 Corinthians 5:14). For Paul, this meant three things:
Christ's love for all people
First, Christ's love for all people drove him-"One died for all . . . He died for all" (2 Corinthians 5:14, 15*). The dimensions of such love are overwhelming (see Ephesians 3:18, 19). Its depths are measured by the fact Christ died for us while we were still helpless, hopeless, godless, sinful, rebel enemies (see Romans 5:6-10). It is so wide that He gave His son, not only for the whole world but even for the "whosoever," meaning even for one lost soul (see John 3:16). It is so long that "where sin increased"-as it did in the lives of Samson, Solomon, Jonah, and Manasseh-"grace increased all the more" (Romans 5:20).
God's love is so high it reached to the very throne of God, bringing the Almighty Son of God down to this rebel planet to become one of us for time and eternity; to redeem us, thus declaring each person to be of infinite value to God. Reckless, amazing prodigal love, that God should pay an infinite price for each one of us-a price far beyond what we are each worth! No wonder Paul added, "So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view" (2 Corinthians 5:16). People are never "just people": rather, every person-those on the street, in our home, office and classroom, and even you-is of infinite value to God.
Paul's love for Christ
Secondly, Paul's love for Christ compelled him to make God's mission his mission and the top priority in life "that those who live"-those who have put their trust in Christ and Him crucified (see John 3:3, 9, 14-16)-"should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again" (2 Corinthians 5:15). Paul was like his Lord, who said, "My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work" (John 4:34; see also John 14:31 and 6:38).
For whom do you and I live? Me and mine, you and yours, or for Him and His? Christ only becomes "all and in all" to those who accept God's undying, undeserved grace in Christ and genuinely repent of sin, turning from it in heart, mind and lifestyle.
Christ's love in Paul
Finally, Christ's love in Paul motivated him to make reconciling others to God his number one priority in life: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old"-the old ways of seeing anyone and everyone, and acting toward them as if they are unimportant-"has gone, the new has come" (2 Corinthians 5:17). The reason for this is obvious-Paul had been "crucified with Christ," yet he no longer lived. Rather, Christ now lived in him, as he daily put his trust and dependence in Christ and Him alone (see Galatians 2:20). Christ was now his life, and the love of Christ was shed abroad in his own heart and life by the Spirit of Jesus, who had raised him to a new life (see Colossians 3:4; Romans 5:5; 6:4).
Is Christ's love in you? It is if you have invited Him into your life, holding onto Him by walking in all the light He has shed on us in His Word and commandments (see
John 15:4, 10; 1 John 5:2, 3).
This same motivator
How can we have this same motivator that drove Paul? The Bible is unequivocal: "all this is from God" (2 Corinthians 5:18). At Calvary, "God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. . . . God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" (2 Corinthians 5:19, 21).
As we live life daily at the foot of the old rugged cross, looking to Jesus, the Author and the Finisher of our faith, this same motivator will drive us to make reconciling others to Jesus our number-one priority in life. It can be yours and mine right now as we throw our helpless selves, by faith, on Jesus and Him alone, repenting and turning away in heart and practice from all known sin.
Jesus is coming soon! God and the world desperately need you and me to become His reconciling ambassadors right now (see 2 Corinthians 5:20). God urges us right now to be reconciled to Him and claim all these things in Jesus' name.
*All Bible quotations are from the New International Version.
This is the first of a two part series. Read the second part.
Gary Webster is secretary of the ministerial association of the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific, based in Wahroonga, New South Wales.
This has been a feature from Record, May 23, 2009
Back to God.