So, what motivates you? Why do you get up in the morning to go to work or to your business? Have you ever reflected on that?
One thing that can not motivate you, are excuses!
I used to work my businesses and be motivated by desperation. I would feel if I didn’t work 15 hours a day that I wouldn’t bring in the funds to take care of my personal obligations. I would work harder not smarter and it got me nowhere. That is when I decided to change my motivation. I wanted generational wealth to be my motivation. I wanted my family’s happiness to be my motivation. I wanted my personal satisfaction in my accomplishments to motivate me. So when I changed, everything else changed! I adjusted my pricing, I cut my hours down to a 5 hour work day and I made more time to spend with my family enjoying them. You can’t grow if you’re motivated by fear, stress or desperation. You must be motivated by something bigger than you and motivated by what is MOST important. Assess your motivation and if any changes are needed, make them.
Hebrews 10:22-25 (MSG) So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps his word. Let’s see how inventive we can be in encouraging love and helping out, not avoiding worshiping together as some do but spurring each other on, especially as we see the big Day approaching.
Galatians 5: 16-18 (MSG) My counsel is this: Live freely, animated and motivated by God’s Spirit. Then you won’t feed the compulsions of selfishness. For there is a root of sinful self-interest in us that is at odds with a free spirit, just as the free spirit is incompatible with selfishness. These two ways of life are contrary to each other, so that you cannot live at times one way and at times another way according to how you feel on any given day. Why don’t you choose to be led by the Spirit and so escape the erratic compulsions of a law-dominated existence?
Luke 9:57-62 (NIV) “As they were walking along the road, a man said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.””
Excuse –
- a pretext or subterfuge (an artifice or expedient used to evade a rule, escape a consequence, hide something, etc.)
- an inferior or inadequate specimen of something specified:
I would do it but my excuse is a priority.
I would do it but serving God in obedience is not really my priority.
It sounds good but I’ll do it when it’s convenient for me.
When you make up excuses you lie to yourself and make yourself think that picking up your cross is optional.
Jesus is calling you to purpose and if you are looking for excuses and expecting blessings, you are off.
These excuses disqualify you from Matt 6:33 [“But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.”]
““Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say?” -Luke 6:46 NIV
How long will you make the Lord wait on you and why do you think it’s okay for Him to wait on you?