Motive

What we do matters, but why we do it matters more.

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. - 1 Corinthians 13:1-3

When people do something horrific, we struggle to understand what their motive was in doing it.

There is a new series staring on Netflix, called Mindhunter, and it is about the FBI staring to profile killers to understand why they do what they do.  I am looking forward to the show.  I think it will be captivating.

Imagine if we felt the same way about wanting to know why people do good.  We would try to get deep inside their minds to probe around and discover the source of their goodness.

And what would we find?

In his first letter to the church in Corinth, Paul tells us that motivation behind our actions is love.  Without love, we are nothing more than a clanging cymbal, noise.

It is easier to imagine someone doing something good without being motivated by love, than it is to imagine someone being evil with good intentions.

So, the message here is simple.  Begin with love.  If we start there, we will most likely do good and our faith will have an outlet that makes it real.

Paul reminds us that we are nothing without love, so the goal is to be something.

We will probably never see a tv series about the reason people do good in the world, and that's a shame, because we need more good.  We find ourselves fascinated by the doers of evil, and we take for granted the doers of good.

I am sure Mindhunter will attract a lot of attention, and I may even watch it, but I will giving some thought to the motivation of the good in the world as I do.

Without it, life would truly be nothing.

More to come...