Motivation is a Snare

And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: but whosoever will lose his life for my sake, the same shall save it. (Luke 9: 23 24)

I have intentionally started with verses that are antithetical to my message.

This is because I feel it is important to establish what motivation is really against.

Many may think that I am a wet blanket because I am opposing their favorite preachers. Many think that I am aggrieved by one or more of these preachers and am behaving as Jeremiah was behaving towards the Jews.

Many think that life and ministry has dealt me a very cruel turn and made me bitter.

But nothing could be farther from the truth.

The truth is that God actually delivered me from motivation as I sought to know and live according to His word. I was a passionate believer and practitioner of motivation since my childhood, devouring vast amounts of motivational content in Christian books (there were no tapes and videos then)

From the positive thinking books in the 70s to the speak it claim it later, I really enjoyed those books.

As I said in the first message about motivation those messages are like fast food, easily digestible and requiring little actual engagement or work. And their aroma is very inviting of course.

You can therefore look at me as an insider who jumped out of that snare. I was actually snatched or rescued from that snare. And I will be eternally grateful to God for that rescue.

It is therefore in the context of Luke 9:23 that we can accurately gauge motivation. And it is there that we can easily distinguish between motivation and encouragement, though I will probably write about encouragement later. But I trust you will find posts about encouragement on my blog somewhere.

Motivation will never talk about denying self, unless it is for the purposes of taking what you have denied yourself to the superstar and his structure. Even then that denial will be material and not spiritual. And it will be prompted by that conman and his structure.

Motivation is always the easy way in the short term. That is why those churches are full to overflowing with people who have no qualms about sin. That is why those conmen are defended with so much vehemence even on issues that are plainly undisputable because the motivated have chosen the easy route as opposed to Christ’s route of denial of self and pursuit of holiness.

Get to the point. I know someone is shouting.

Motivation is a trap to the motivator as well as the motivated.

As such, it must be set up to be able to ensnare. That is what I want us to look at.

How does a preacher get ensnared into motivational preaching? How does a believer get swallowed up into discarding solid scriptural preaching for motivation?

Allow me to go back to the study of rebellion and look at one character, Balaam.

Simply speaking the king dangled before him an irresistible order, an order that made him doubt what God had clearly told him. And from that point everything else went downhill.

A preacher must be baited to switch to motivational preaching. And the stakes are normally very high.

Allow me to give a somewhat comical current example.

There are characters in the church I attend that have been scheming for years to overthrow the pastor because he was at the pole position of taking over some big denominational position. The person who was to leave the position did not want to relinquish that position though he was clearly disqualified from continuing. He therefore joined the schemers in their pursuit because he also had a bigger stake in it. But I didn’t know about that scheme, though I had been suspecting something of the sort.

I was approached by one of them and told that I was the right person to occupy that position the pastor would occupy and that he would talk with the churches electing to ensure I got the position.

I of course refused since I have no interest at all in any denominational, or even church, leadership. I am just content to serve God where I am.

After the elections, the same people cooked such damaging allegations against the pastor, even cooking minutes of meetings. We are still fighting that battle.

But suppose I had desired that position and agreed with that schemer. Do you think I could be at the position I am at fighting for the truth? Do you think I could be having the moral authority to call out their scheme and the wickedness therein?

Of course not.

Though it is interesting to know that only the pastor was qualified for that position. I was simply being baited with a position that I couldn’t have been given.

But do you think it could have mattered if I had joined their scheme?

Allow me to give another example that repeats itself enough times.

Imagine you are a pastor of a huge congregation. This means that you know very few people beyond superficially.

Suppose with me that a lady brings you a very expensive suit or dinner set. Then does something similar a few other times.

After a long time of enjoying her bounty, you get to realise that she is a high-class harlot.

What will you do?

Will you look her in the eye when God gives you a message against harlotry? How will you feel when you mention prostitution in your sermons?

I will close with another example and you are still the pastor.

A member approaches you seeking your prayer and involvement before establishing his hotel in those far-flung places.

You gladly go to lay the stone of the building, even mobilizing the church for prayer.

He then asks you to come open the hotel, giving you free access with your family any time you need to holiday.

As you continue enjoying all that favor, you get to realise that it really is not a hotel but a sex trafficking den and brothel camouflaged as a hotel.

What will you do?

I know your answer is simple, because you are not that pastor. But imagine for once that you are that pastor. It will rarely be a black and white answer.

Let us get back to the Bible

Now after the death of Jehoiada came the princes of Judah, and made obeisance to the king. Then the king hearkened unto them. And they left the house of the LORD God of their fathers, and served groves and idols: and wrath came upon Judah and Jerusalem for this their trespass. (2Chronicles 24: 17, 18)

At this point Jehoiada the priest had died. This means that the powerful influence he had exercised over the king died with him. Though his son was also a prophet, the power of the prophetic voice that he had carried more or less died with him.

It is at this point that what I have been trying to explain happened.

The princes came to the king and feigned submission, loyalty and of course love that the king could not resist. No wonder he joined the motivational bandwagon so quickly.

I will at this point state that motivation’s main purpose is to dull the prophetic voice and eventually replace it. This is what happened to a once godly king.

He eventually killed the prophetic voice, completely forgetting that it was that prophet’s father who rescued him when all his brothers were being killed, eventually making him king at seven.

Yet that is how motivation operates.

It will distance you from your loyal friends who can see better than your compromised reality and not be afraid of confronting you with the truth as we see with Jehoiada’s son a few verses later.

They will fight to convince you that they are the only friends you can count on and completely shield you from your real friends, eventually demonizing them in your eyes.

There are friends we were very close who will never agree to a meeting with me or even receive my calls because they fear I will confront their compromised faith and ministry. And they are right.

In the process, however, they have locked out probably the only sober prognoses of their situation.

And I know there are many other ministers who have been locked out of positions and relationships because their radical nature is deemed too damaging to motivation and the resulting chaos it creates.

Incidentally, the ensnaring does not stop when you take that bait. This because a believer has the capacity of seeing their error at any time. Conviction and rebuke can come from any direction. And repentance and restoration is assured once one has repented of their sin.

The ensnaring must be on a continuous tense. One is not allowed enough time to swallow his saliva as we see Job complaining to God.

They will move from one gift to a bigger and better one, from a little flattery to a whole undiluted dish of the same to blind the baited to the dangers inherent in motivational preaching.

They will fill your life and thought with so much noise that the gentle voice of the Holy Spirit is completely stifled since they will effectively crowd everything and everyone else apart from them out of your life.

That is why motivational preachers live far from the people they motivate. They drive cars that block any interference that may occur if they mix with the rubble since in that rubble are people who can accurately hear God’s voice and are not scared of speaking it.

Should I leave it here?

I just hope you are getting something here.

I have not mentioned the snare for the motivation victims and hope God will have me share one soon.