Motivated

Parents can be too hard on their children. The son or daughter finds it impossible to please them. Try as they may, efforts are never good enough. That daughter’s A should have been an A plus. The crowd cheered after the son’s home-run but later dad frowned. He said another home run would have won the game.

It seems that more and more is expected. Are parents cruel or merely seeking to motivate their children to reach for excellence? They just might recognize more potential than their less confident boys and girls…

The words of the Apostle Paul both convict and challenged the early church. They motivate me.

“I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine making request for you all with joy, for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are partakers with me of grace. For God is my witness, how greatly I long for you all with the affection of Jesus Christ.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and all discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ, being filled with the fruits of righteousness which are by Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God (Philippians1:3-11 NKJV).”

More and more …

LORD, let it be. Amen.