A quote stood out to me today from our introduction to preaching course that I thought powerful and convicting enough to share. It's one of those concepts that I've wrestled with over the past few years. Reading the book, "The Prodigal God" stressed a very similar notion that I think rarely gets addressed because I believe we're rarely honest enough to admit it:
"The right things done for the wrong reasons are wrong."
I find myself wanting to qualify the phrase a little in order to make it less convicting. How can you make a blanket statement that its wrong to do the right things? What about those times when we have mixed motives and do something out of obedience rather than out of joy? The more I read the story of the prodigal elder brother, the more I see the truth in this statement. His goal was to do the right thing - to maintain his father's property, to be dutiful in everything as a son, to not sway to the right or to the left or even step near the path that his younger brother was taking. But his motive (and the motive of every Pharisee like me that ever lived) was not one of gratitude and expression of love for his father. It was one of manipulation. If I'm good...then God will... Keller states it like this - "wanting the Father's things and not the Father."
Thankfully, in God's grace, He sees our hidden motives and oftentimes works in spite of them. He sees that there is a part of me that wants to pursue seminary to 'know more of the Father's things' and He reminds me that relationship, truly knowing a person, has just as much to do with the heart as it does the mind. Knowing the importance of trusting God will remain a concept until the rent is due and there's $50 in the account. Believing that God is good in difficulty is theoretical until someone you love is tragically taken from you. That's why David's prayer for God to search and know His heart involves finding those wrong motives and correcting them.
Search me, O God and know my heart. See if there is any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.
