John 21:15 So when they had dined, Jesus saith to Simon Peter, Simon, son of Jonas, lovest thou me more than these? He saith unto him, Yea, Lord; thou knowest that I love thee. He saith unto him, Feed my lambs.

I did a bible search using the word motivation. Not surprisingly the results came up zero, in usage and in the topical index. I tried five of the more popular versions of the bible and found that each one posted John 21:15-17 as an example of motivation.

The essence of these passages is that if we love the Lord, we should love what He loves, in the same way He loves them. He also reiterated that sentiment for being disciples.

John 13:35 By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.

To paraphrase another verse Jesus left us; if you love the Lord do what He tells you to do. I understand that the majority of teachings on that verse want to place the focus on the commandments which we have demonstrated time and time again as being impossible to keep.

If you place the focus on our love for Him, it overshadows performance in favor of relationship. The reason for that is evidence in His sacrifice. We couldn’t do it for ourselves, so He did it for us. Now having accepted Jesus Christ into our hearts by faith nothing has changed. We still cannot do it. He will do it for us.

Recently I tried to press the issue that we should consider ourselves betrothed to Christ. That is a more intimate relationship than student, disciple, servant or friend. In this intimate relationship we will discover that if we love Him that way the things He tells us will be more intimate.

Psalm 17:15 As for me, I will behold thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness.

I avoid mirrors like the plague. All I see is a tired old man who is overweight and balding. Mirrors are brutally honest. I doubt I will ever be satisfied with my image because I am human.

If I were to try and see Jesus in the mirror, I would be sorely disappointed. So how do we see Jesus? How do we behold His face? The simple answer is by faith but I have to ask, are you satisfied with what you see by faith?

This is always a problem for us if we only look to self-reflection to see Jesus. I know Him by His Word and I admit I don’t measure up. No matter how hard I try I will never be Jesus. So what can we do to help ourselves?

How about taking a realistic view of our change. Are we the people we were a year ago or five years ago, or at our lowest point where we admitted we needed God’s help? No. We are not the same.

We set goals in life in order to achieve better things for ourselves. Careers are usually measured by milestones of education, promotion and salary. How are we to measure growth in Christ? When will we be satisfied?

Psalm 42:1 As the hart panteth after the water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.

If I am going to be honest with myself, the satisfaction of Ps 17:15 will only come after I have been translated and this life is over.

If we look to be satisfied, we will be satisfied. The flesh which is fading away will say enough is enough. I’m good enough. That is the failure of self-satisfaction, we lose our thirst for God.