Motives

This morning I was reading John 12:1-8 and found myself deeply challenged. In this passage we see the story of Mary pouring costly oil over Jesus and being rebuked by Judas (you know it is a bad day when it is Judas who rebukes you!) because that oil could have been sold and the money used to help the poor.   What nailed me today was the next verse:

John 12:6 "This he said, not that he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief, and had the money box; and he used to take what was put in it." 

If we were not given this insight by John, we would be quick to think Judas is right. Clearly this is waste of money and God wants us to use our money to help the poor. But when given a chance to see the truth in Judas' heart we see his true motive.  We see that Judas talks a good game, he says the right words, the ones that would lead us to believe that his a heartfelt follower of Christ.  He spent three years with Jesus, walking, serving, seeing miracles, hearing parables, he had the resume of a God fearing man; and yet he sold Jesus out.  This brief insight into his heart reveals so much that I think we can quickly over look about the what it means to truly be a Christian.

Being a Christian is a heart issue. It is much easier to act like a Christian, by that I mean, have up the cross in your house, attend church and small group, listen to Christian music, avoid the obvious sins.  In theses ways we can create our own Christian resume, that we outwardly present to those around us. But Christ ask so much more of us, he asks for our hearts. He wants our hearts to be his, our goals, our desires to be about him. We must constantly check our motives, search our hearts and work to keep them aligned with Christ.  We spend too much time worrying about what people thing about us, be it our neighbors or our friends at Church. We concern ourselves with looking the part and fear that if others see us fail or see our struggles they will think less of our or our faith.  This is where trouble begins, because our focus is on ourselves and not on Christ. Worry less about looking like a Christian and more about loving Christ, if we can do this, we will be motivated by our love for Christ and  people will see him in us and that is all that matters.