Has anyone ever sneezed within your proximity? “Achoo1“, and you respond “God bless you.”
Today, I was driving with my sons to the grocery store in Thursday afternoon traffic. We finished getting groceries and I was leaving the parking lot. I was trying to enter the street to get home, but I noticed that someone was actually stopping in the middle of traffic to let someone in from the parking lot. This could be viewed from three perspectives: who cares, a nice gesture or they are impeding traffic for others. Since I needed to enter traffic I saw them as impeding the flow of traffic. And yes, it is nice when someone lets you in, but an interesting thought came to mind.
I asked the Lord or myself, “Why do people impeded traffic for the sake of being ‘nice’?”
I think sometimes the gesture is genuine or necessary in situations like wrecks or traffic jams, but sometimes drivers are just holding up the flow of traffic. Why? That is what bugged me a little. This was the thought that came to mind, “It makes them feel good inside. They get a warm fuzzy feeling.” This may not be the case all the time, but at the time this was a sufficient answer to me. In nutshell, if you stand back and look at it, think of your spiritual walk in the same manner. What if I tithe, pray, fast, read the word, give, minister, etc. because “it makes me feel good?”
In this culture, the response may be, “And what’s the matter with that?” If my motive of impeding traffic is to let someone in because it makes me feel good then I am not really thinking about the person I am letting in, but really supporting self-righteousness. Whoa. Strong words just for driving. The apostle Paul talks about eating things offered to idols in 1 Corinthians 8, but was he really talking about what we eat? It seems the more I think about it the more I see much of everything we do centers on motive. This motive is derived from our heart, conscience and the Spirit which we adhere to. This is what Paul constantly talks about in his epistles. A new creature in Christ is also someone with a new motive.
Paul speaks in Philippians about being of one mind. The mind of Christ. This mind wills and thinks as One. We are His body and He is the Head of the body. Philippians 2:2-5.
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