Motivation is a monumental issue in our spiritual lives. We will be constantly tempted to embrace motives that damage our spiritual growth. Many of them are disguised. The supreme motive for everything in our life should be our desire for the community of love with God and his followers. It may sound simple to consistently choose this motivation, but it is not. In fact, we will be learning to choose this for our whole lives. When we are young in Christformation we learn to recognize obvious impure motives such as sensual gratification, materialism, retaliation and preoccupation with our image. But after you overcome these there is a whole other set of hidden motives waiting to torpedo your spiritual life.
If you are willing to pursue self-knowledge with God (so that you can “put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature” (Col. 3:5, NIV)) then you will discover deeply embedded motives that will require much grace from God to expel. You will find many faults as you get to know yourself better. For example, you will find that you often desire to improve your circumstances more than loving God. You will find spiritual hedonism, a spiritual sweet tooth, that constantly steers you toward spiritual sweetness and away from self-death. You will find dishonesty and avoidance that block you from facing an unpleasant but plain truth in Scripture or in your heart.
You will find that spiritual pride is always mixing in with your pursuit of God. In fact, there are a thousand variations of spiritual pride. You may find spiritual pride that keeps you from asking for help with your life. It may take the form of pursuing the approval of others, perhaps because you feel inadequate. You may find spiritual pride compelling you to seek spiritual experiences so that you will be viewed as more mature than others.
Even worse, you will find that you can falsely convince yourself that your highest motive is God’s community of love just because you have a desire for it. In other words, you might think that since you passionately want to be close to God that it must be your highest priority. But your life choices and habits indicate that other motivations have priority. There is a huge difference between desiring something and making something your supreme desire. This is where deeper self-awareness is critical.
If you are open and honest the Spirit will bring light and you will start to see the priority of your motives. A good spiritual counselor can also help you see them. Discovering and purging our harmful motives sets us free to better abide in Christ.
