LifeLink Devotional

Tuesday, October 6, 2020

What motivates you to make the decisions you make? What drives you to choose what to say and do and when to say it or do it?

There are two possible answers to those questions. Either we are motivated by our love for the world, or we are driven by our love for Jesus Christ.

Here’s what Jesus said to His brothers.

John 7:6-7 Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify about it that its works are evil.”

Here’s the context. Jesus has been asked by His brothers to go public with His ministry and show everyone who He really is. Jesus says the time for Him to declare who He is and His mission has not yet arrived. Based on what Jesus says next, we can determine that Jesus was operating under different guiding principles than were His brothers. Jesus said, we can determine that Jesus was operating under different guiding principles than were His brothers. Jesus said, “Your time is always here.”  

Jesus made a clear distinction between Himself and His brothers. Jesus was guided by God’s timeline to accomplish God’s agenda. His brothers could chose to say and do whatever they wanted whenever they wanted because they were being guided by the world. The world could not hate them, because everything they did was motivated by the world’s philosophy and principles.

Under God’s control, Jesus chose to surrender to God’s timeline. Under the world’s control, His brothers chose to seek acceptance by the world.  We have those same two choices. We will be motivated by either God’s principles or by the world’s principles.

All of our choices, decisions, activities, and words reflect which Kingdom we have chosen to fit into and please.  We will do the works of whichever Kingdom we love.

If we love the approval of the world, we will do the works of the world, and we can do them whenever we choose.

But if we love Jesus, we will not love the world, or the things that are in the world, and we will not conform to the ways of the world. We will instead be transformed so that our minds can comprehend and act upon the will of God. His Spirit in us guides our decisions and the timing of everything we do so it accomplishes His redemptive purpose in the world.

Does the world hate you? GOOD! Keep being guided by your love for Jesus.

Pastor John