L.I.F.E. LESSONS
Volume 2
"What Motivates You??
Unit I
"Ordering Our Priorities - Motivated By God's Call Instead of Our Resources"
Unit Introduction - Our Perception
God is faithful to work in your life in a way that transforms your priorities and desires to those of His own. He has good reason for doing so. He wants you to share the dreams that He has for you so that He can make all your dreams come true!! But we often misunderstand the steps He takes in the process of transforming us so that we will find our delight in Him and His perfect will. So He wants to change our perceptions that lead us to the wrong conclusions about how He works.
As we study the Old Testament Books of Haggai, Jonah, and Habakkuk, through the filter of the New Covenant, some long-standing beliefs in your life may be challenged. God may want to change your perception about some things you have always accepted as truth so that you can come to a new understanding of even deeper truths.
Sometimes an accepted interpretation of Scripture passages will have to change so that you will no longer accept as fact any belief that is based on tradition and you will submit to the absolute truth of His Word. Your perception of how and why God reveals your tendencies to operate according to the patterns of your flesh-life must often change so that you will gratefully submit to His wise conviction without being overcome by feelings of guilt in the process. And your perception of God's methods must also change so that you will submit to His work in bringing your desires into perfect alignment with His desires for you.
Here are three ways He may want to change your perception:
1. You Can't Confuse Tradition With Truth. About three years ago, I began to realize that some of the beliefs I allowed to dominate my life were based on tradition and not truth. So I willingly surrendered them to God and asked Him to teach me what He wanted me to believe. There were three key truths that He immediately set in concrete for me. Those three beliefs have become constants against which all other beliefs are measured in my life.
a. God is omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. He knows everything. He can do anything. And He is everywhere. If any belief violates those facts, then it cannot be based on truth.
b. Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth, and THE Life. If any belief leads me to salvation, interpretation, or operation by any other source but the life of Jesus, then it is not based on truth.
c. The Bible is 100% truth. If any belief in my life causes the interpretation of one verse to contradict with another verse, then I have not yet arrived at truth. I must keep asking God to reveal the truth from His Word to me until I can fit every verse of Scripture into my belief system.
With the exception of those three constants, I had to be open to the possibility that some of my long-standing beliefs might be based on tradition and not truth. I had to be willing to allow God to reshape my belief system. As we study the three Old Testament Books in this volume of L.I.F.E. Lessons, you may have to ask God to reveal truth to you concerning some long-standing beliefs in your own life. Don't hang on to what you believe just because of tradition. Be willing to allow God to show you whether or not your beliefs are based on His truth.
2. We Can't Confuse Conviction with Condemnation. Exactly what is conviction as the Bible describes it for New Covenant believers? Does it still take place in the lives of Christians today and if so, how?
The Biblical definition of the word "convict? is a picture of exposing something that was once unclear or convincing someone of something they didn't think was true. It doesn't always mean that a fault is being condemned. Sometimes it simply means that a truth is being revealed or verified. Therefore, conviction does not always have to involve condemnation, as many of us have traditionally believed.
For people who are not Christians, conviction is always combined with condemnation. But since we know that there is no longer any condemnation for Christians (Romans 8:1), then we can be sure that conviction for us is simply God pointing out an area of our lives where we are settling for less than His best. It is God lovingly exposing places where we are not living in victory.
So, how does conviction happen in a Christian's life? Contrary to popular belief, God does not convict us by weighing us down with feelings of guilt and remorse over our love for sin. Instead, He trusts the desires of the new nature within us to bring us to a point where we will seek a way of escape from sin on our own.
When Paul described his struggle with sin in Romans 7, he didn't sound like a man who loved sinning and wanted to continue in it. He sounded like a man who hated his sin and wanted it out of his life! If you are honest with yourself you will probably admit that's how you feel as well. You don't love your sin. You may be tempted to do it and you may even enjoy it at times, but you truly wish it was out of your life. Deep down you hate it, right?
God doesn't have to lay guilt and condemnation on us in order to convict us that we are wrong. He has implanted within us our own personal "convicter? that lets us know when we are operating outside the perfect choices God has made available to us. The Holy Spirit living within us points out what is better than what we have chosen. God gives me victory over sin by convincing me that He has something better for me than the temporary pleasure and comfort of my sin. That is God's loving method of conviction in the life of a Christian. If you are a believer that is feeling guilt and shame, it's coming from a source other than the heart of God.
3. We Can't Confuse Punishment with Purifying. Now, the methods that God uses to convince us that He has a better alternative than our sin are not always pleasant and that often leads us to the incorrect conclusion that we are being punished. But as we learned in the first volume of L.I.F.E. Lessons, there is no longer any punishment required to pay for my sinful deeds. However, God loves me so much that He wants to teach me the best way to live. He wants to instruct me with His wisdom so that I will enjoy the abundance of the Christian life. That is discipline.
There is a huge difference between discipline and punishment. Punishment is payment for a crime and Jesus has already paid our debt in full. Discipline is simply instruction; teaching; purifying; the process of removing potentially harmful tendencies from our lives.
If you never separate the concepts of punishment and discipline, you will never live out of your complete freedom in Christ. As we study the Books of Haggai, Jonah, and Habakkuk, you have to remember that the events of those Books occurred before Jesus died on the cross to pay the price for our sin. We will be able to draw great lessons from the principles of these Old Testament Scriptures, but we cannot look at them without doing so through the filter of the New Covenant. That is the only way we can apply the lessons from the lives of these Old Testament characters to our own lives today.
Sometimes it may "feel? as if God is punishing us, but the reality is that Jesus has already endured all our punishment. God is instead purifying us to remove the potential for disaster from our lives. As He worked in the lives of the people in Haggai's, Jonah's, and Habakkuk's day, He will be faithful to work in ours. But He does so with great love and concern for our well being and not out of anger over our disobedience.
Unit I - Lesson One
"Our Passion"
When you endure the death of a dream do you become bitter about it? Does it break your heart? Or have you ever considered that maybe God allowed your dream to die so that you could learn to love the dreams that He has for you? Always remember that He wants you to share His dreams for you so that He can make all your dreams come true!!
"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 (NKJV)
The phrase "delight yourself" in that verse means "to thoroughly enjoy to the point of luxuriating!" Do you luxuriate in the Lord? Do you thoroughly enjoy Him and His call on your life?
How would you define passion? The dictionary uses words like "strong love" and "intense feelings" to describe it. We could add definitions like "our motivation for action" or "our deepest desires" to the dictionary's definitions. The phrase "delight yourself" above has a similar meaning to our definition of passion. Basically, passion is what delights you. Passion is what continually and naturally drives you to do whatever you do. Passion is what keeps the fire burning in any endeavor. If passion for a duty is lost, then that duty becomes toilsome and dreaded. There is no delight in it. But as long as passion is burning, that duty is a joy and a privilege to you. Passion is what makes what you do enjoyable. Passion is what gives you delight in service.
Now considering that definition, how easy would it be for you to experience the abundant Christian life if your passion identically matched God's? It would be as natural and as simple as breathing! When your burning desire is the same as God's burning desire for you, then you always get what your heart desires!! And God's passion for you will always drive you to the abundant Christian life that He has planned for you.
Why is passion so important to the abundant Christian life? It is because passion is the basis for your priorities. And your priorities are the basis for your actions. You will always budget time and resources for whatever is important to you. So when what is important to God becomes important to you, whatever He calls you to do will be exactly what your heart desires and you will consider doing it a pleasure. When you share God's passion, His call on your life will become your greatest joy! Here is the simple truth. Whenever you want for yourself whatever God wants for you, then you will always get whatever you want!! And that will always be what brings you the greatest joy in life.
There is no Book in the Bible that verifies these truths more than the Old Testament Book of Haggai. Let's review some history for the Book of Haggai.
In 538 B.C., about sixteen years before the prophet Haggai appeared on the scene, King Cyrus had issued an edict allowing the Jews who were in captivity to return to Jerusalem under the civil leadership of Zerubbabel and the spiritual leadership of Joshua the High-Priest. About 50,000 of them enthusiastically left and began rebuilding the temple in Jerusalem within two years.
However, the rebuilding soon met with opposition, even threats of danger, if the work continued. After King Cyrus died, his replacement even issued an edict prohibiting further work on the temple. These obstacles, discouragements, and disappointments caused the Hebrews' passion for the temple rebuilding to grow cold and soon they became tired and weary of the struggle. Rebuilding the temple became drudgery. The work soon came to a stop.
By the time the next ruler, King Darius, came into power the people had no desire left to continue their building. Even when he lifted the edict that prohibited their work, they didn't return to the task. In fact, they almost seemed glad that they had an excuse for stopping the building in progress.
That's the situation that Haggai was facing when God called him to bring a message to the people. His assignment was to be God's voice to a nation of people who had lost their passion for God and had become consumed by a passion for other things. Their entire lives were focused on acquiring wealth, possessions, and prominence. They were heading for disaster and God loved them enough to send Haggai with a message that would rescue them from themselves and restore their passion for Him.
Over the four months following God's call on Haggai's life, he preached a series of messages that accomplished God's purpose. Although the Book of Haggai is one of the shortest in the Bible with only two chapters, it is wisdom packed and could have been written in the 21st century.
A Passion Replaced
"1. In the second year of King Darius, in the sixth month, on the first day of the month, the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, saying, 2. "Thus speaks the Lord of hosts, saying: "This people says, "The time has not come, the time that the Lord's house should be built." Haggai 1:1-2 (NKJV)
As is often the case in our day, the problem was not that the people had no passion at all. It was that an appropriate passion for God had been replaced with a passion for all the wrong things. Notice that the response the people gave Haggai was not that they had no intentions of ever returning to the temple building project. Their reasons for their delay was just that the timing wasn't right for them! There were too many other things that were more important.
People haven't changed a lot in the last two thousand years. I can just imagine their excuses. "We just can't afford it right now." "We haven't recovered from our time in captivity yet. Let me get my life in order first." "We are so busy getting our own house built right now that we just don't have the time to work on the temple." "My children are involved in so many things right now. Let me get them through this year of school."
We almost never give God an emphatic "no" to His call in our life. Like the Hebrews, we usually say that we will get around to it eventually, when the time is right.
And what is God's response to their reasoning?
"3. Then the word of the Lord came by Haggai the prophet, saying, 4. "Is it time for you yourselves to dwell in your paneled houses, and this temple to lie in ruins?" Haggai 1:3-4 (NKJV)
Notice that verse 4 says "paneled houses." Don't misinterpret that to mean that the people were building humble abodes just as a shelter for their families. These were not merely walls and rooftops. They were more like ornamental, elegant homes. This is a picture of houses that were covered and furnished with the finest of materials.
Let's look back at the verse we read at the beginning of this lesson.
"Delight yourself also in the Lord, and He shall give you the desires of your heart." Psalm 37:4 (NKJV)
Remember that we learned that the phrase "delight yourself" in that verse means "to thoroughly enjoy to the point of luxuriating!"? They were living in luxury, but they were not luxuriating in the Lord.
We have a passion for whatever is our absolute delight. God's desire is that we come to delight ourselves in Him so that He can give us our heart's desire. The people of Haggai's day made a mess of that concept. They passionately pursued riches and possessions, totally neglecting God in the process. They were trying to get the desires of their heart without first allowing God to transform their desires into what He wanted for them.
Therefore, as we will learn in the upcoming lessons, their passionate pursuit of possessions was in vain. They eventually came close to losing everything. But God intervened.
A Passion Re-ignited
"14. So the Lord stirred up the spirit of Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and the spirit of Joshua the son of Jehozadak, the high priest, and the spirit of all the remnant of the people; and they came and worked on the house of the Lord of hosts, their God." Haggai 1:14 (NKJV)
How did God get the people back to work on the temple? He "stirred their hearts." That is a Hebrew phrase that means that God woke up a motivating force inside them. He re-ignited a passion in them. And that passion immediately caused them to cheerfully return to the task of rebuilding the temple. This was a group of people that had procrastinated for sixteen years, but after God stirred their hearts, they began the work within three weeks. And most of that time was probably spent collecting materials.
Here's how it works. God brings us to a point, through events of our lives, that we desire Him most of all. We absolutely luxuriate in Him. Through that, He ignites a passion within us and His heart's desire becomes our own. That burning passion drives us to cheerfully respond to His call on our lives. No one has to enforce rules on us or command us to do the right thing. God has stirred our hearts and that is enough.
And then notice what happened in the lives of the people.
A Passion Rewarded
"18. Consider now from this day forward, from the twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, from the day that the foundation of the Lord's temple was laid - consider it:" 19. "from this day I will bless you." Haggai 2:18, 19c
The people didn't come to work on the temple for the purpose of getting God's blessing. They didn't work to get God to respond to their need. Instead, they responded to God and the blessing was a by-product of the change in their heart's desire. As long as acquiring possessions was their focus, they weren't able to get anything they wanted. But when their focus shifted to God's, they got what they had wanted all along without even asking for it!! Do you remember the last part of Psalm 37:4?
"..and He shall give you the desires of your heart."
When we are driven by a passion for God alone, we don't care if we have "things? or not. Things are no longer important to us. And we often find that when our heart's desire becomes that of God's, He is then free to give us what we originally wanted. You see, the people's desire for nice homes was not the problem. It was that having nice things had become their passion. And God knows that such a passion will always keep you from His greatest blessings.
God repeated this lesson in the New Testament.
"31. Therefore do not worry, saying, ?What shall we eat?' or "What shall we drink?' or ?What shall we wear?' 32. For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. 33. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." Matthew 6:31-33 (NKJV)
As long as we are focused on what we want or even what we need, then God is at work in our lives to shift our focus from our own desires to the desires of His heart for us. Once that is accomplished and our passion matches His own, then He is free to provide our heart's deepest desires.
Let me share a testimony to close that will illustrate how this entire concept recently worked itself out in my own life. As a speaker and Bible study author, I had reached a point where I had been so busy with family issues that I had neglected the time I spent just abiding with God for the sheer joy of it. Bible study became something I did just to get material for writing studies. I thoroughly enjoyed reading from a daily devotional book by one of my favorite authors, so I began to think that maybe I just needed another book by him; one that would go a little deeper than just a devotional thought. I decided to begin a search for such a book as soon as I had time. And I felt sure that I would have time soon because I had decided to quit speaking and writing entirely because it had become sheer drudgery.
I was booked for a retreat the next weekend and quite honestly, I was dreading it because I felt like I had too many responsibilities at home to be away at that time. But when I arrived, I discovered that I had a beautiful room overlooking a lake. I was completely alone with no responsibilities for several hours out of three days. God drew me back to Himself during those hours and in that time of refreshing He re-ignited my passion for Himself. I didn't need another book by a gifted author to be on fire for Him again. I just needed to be with Him. I just needed to allow Him to "stir my heart? again. He reminded me of the words of Jeremiah.
"Then I said, "I will not make mention of Him, Nor speak anymore in His name." But His word was in my heart like a burning fire Shut up in my bones; I was weary of holding it back, And I could not." Jeremiah 20:9 (NKJV)
Jeremiah was a man with a passion. It was impossible for him to stop speaking about God even when he tried to do so. God showed me that I was the same way. As long as I was going about trying to gain energy for speaking and writing from other sources, I was unsuccessful and ready to quit. It was toilsome labor for me. But when the passion for God is burning in my life, I can't keep from talking and writing about it. It's like a fire in my bones that I have to release.
Now, here's the really neat part of that story. After the last service of the retreat, a group of girls called me off to the side of the room. They had a gift for me. When I opened the gift my breath caught in my throat. It was a 1,600 page complete volume of every work written by the same author of my daily devotional book! Those girls had no way of knowing I had wanted a book by that author, yet they gave me a volume containing everything he had ever written. God was faithful to give me the desires of my heart, in abundance, once I delighted myself totally in Him.
On the cover of this volume of L.I.F.E. Lessons is a picture of a sailboat. Aboard it, you can be driven along by the wind alone, exerting no effort of your own. But when the sails are down, the craft is no more than a rowboat and you must row strenuously to move the boat along.
Our lives can either mirror a sailboat or a rowboat. When we allow God to give us a passion for Him, that passion will naturally drive us to exactly whatever God has planned for us. But if we expend our energy to reach our own desires and goals, we really get nowhere and we become exhausted.
God never intended for us to be rowboats. He intends for us to be motivated by a God-given passion! He created us to sail.
Deeper Truths Contained In This L.I.F.E. Lesson
1. Sometimes God allows our own dreams to die so that He can bring us to a point that we love the dreams He has for us.
2. Worldly discouragements and responsibilities can cause us to replace a passion for God with a passion for other things.
3. God works in our lives to re-ignite our passion for Him and in so doing, He stirs our hearts to respond to His call on our lives.
4. Though we don't do it for a reward, God always blesses us with the desires of our hearts when our passion matches His passion for us.
