Fort William Historical Park, Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
…for the Lord searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. I Chronicles 28:9
Ha! You thought we’d found redwood trees up here, didn’t you? Admit it. That’s what first popped into your head!
It’s actually the name of the church we visited this morning. It turned out to be quite a bit like The Chapel. Including me having to dig my ear plugs out of temporary retirement. And the unfortunate fact that it seemed to be too big to be friendly. We thought it was interesting that they have one service in the summer and two in the winter. People around here must really take advantage of their short summer – – by skipping church. And like The Chapel, it was Holy Worship that contained some humor. Few pastors can hold a candle to Pastor Mike though.
This morning’s message was focused on considering our motives. Motive: the reason for a certain course of action, whether conscious or unconscious.
It began with a lengthy analogy about a child seeking praise and affirmation from their father. “Come see what I did! Look at this! Watch me! I did this is for you!” Followed by, “What kind of a parent would say, ‘that’s awful!’ And then proceed to destroy whatever it is – including stealing the child’s joy?”
What if that child’s motives were only to do these things to get out of chores or to be able to do/get what they want?
How do our motives stand in relation to our Father? All a man’s ways seem innocent to him, but motives are weighed by the Lord. Proverbs 16:2
In Matthew 6:1-18, Jesus addresses our motives by saying, “When you . . . . give/pray/fast . . . do you do it to be admired by others?”
Do we, as Christians, have a list of rules that we check off every day/week? Things like, read my Bible (check), pray (check), give some money (check), obligations at church (check), work at the local food bank, helped an old lady across the street, feed a stray dog (check, check and check). Is our Christianity boiled down to a checklist? What are our motives? Why do we do these things? Is it to gain brownie points from men and from God? Is it because in our minds, we think that by doing them, we can then go about doing whatever we want and God won’t mind (so much)?
Our Father desires true intimacy with us. Not a checklist. He desires true friendship. He desires true love.
Building an intimate relationship takes time and effort and it takes both sides. It doesn’t happen when one person puts forth low effort.
How can we improve our relationship with God? Put in the time and effort.
He’s waiting for us.
We did little today, other than visit a city park that really wasn’t anything to write home about. We did however, get a pretty good view of Sleeping Giant – our next stop.
This rusty old thing was a lift bridge at one time.
The Jeep is covered with some kind of white sticky stuff that came off the maple we park under at the campground. Yuk!
That’s the Sleeping Giant in the background.
The small mountain on the far left is his head.
We’re planning on hiking to – and across – his knees sometime in the near future.