Love is the greatest motivating power in the world. Love will motivate people to do things they would or could never do otherwise, crazy things, hard things, sometimes even impossible things.
I love to ride my bike. I realized again just how much I love to ride on Sunday afternoon. I was out on the back roads of the Texas Hill Country. It was 80 degrees and bright sunshine and just a light breeze to keep me cool. I felt like I could ride forever. However, I remember the first few tough days of my ride from Canada to Mexico in 2008 when it was 40 degrees and raining. Then, riding was not so much fun. Or when I got really sore and tired after about a week of riding many miles a day. Then I needed something more than the love of the bike to motivate me.
What kept me riding was love for unborn babies, whose mothers would see their child on ultrasound, and with a heart filled with compassion choose life for their little one. With the help of God's people, I had raised over $10,000 for ultrasound machines for crisis pregnancy centers. But how could an "abstract" love for an unkown mother and an unborn child keep me riding through rain and pain? It couldn't. What kept me riding was a personal love for my own daughters, whose birth mothers chose life and gave me the honor of loving and raising those beautiful girls as my own. What kept me riding was a personal love for my grandson, whose mother chose life and gave me the privilege of being a godly man in his life. And now I'm blessed with two grandsons to love for the Lord.
The greater the challenge you are facing, the more love it takes to motivate you to push through. That's how we can know that God's love is greater than any other. It empowered him to send his only Son into our world to save us. It gave Jesus the courage and strength to edure suffering, to bear the cross and go to the grave in order to pay for our sins. Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that he lay down his life for his friends." (John 15:13) But how could an abstract love for "the world" motivate Jesus to suffer so much? It couldn't. There was nothing abstract about "God so loved the world..." (John 3:16) There was nothing abstract about Jesus' love on the cross. It was personal. You were God's own dear child before he formed you in your mother's womb. Jesus knew you and loved you as a friend, even before you were born. It was a personal love that enabled him to endure the cross.
In 1 Corinthians 13:8 Paul says, "Love never fails." Do you need motivation to keep going when you want to give up? Do you need strength to accomplish something that is really difficult? Take to heart the love God has for you, the love Jesus demonstrated when he died on the cross for your sins. Then you will have a love at work in your life that will never fail. A love that will move you to accomplish more than you could possibly imagine for the glory of God and the good of others.
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