Introduction: I was with the saints from class recently, and one of them spoke up and called attention to something foundational about the teaching of the Lord Jesus. He, a saint in class, said, “He [Jesus] always went to motive, the motive of the people.”

Context: For over a year, I think, I have been teaching through the Gospel of Matthew. I read the Bible a couple of hours each day as normal regimen, but when I’m teaching through a particular book, I read, reread, and read again that particular book, especially, in addition to the daily regimen.

For many moons now, that book has been Matthew’s Gospel. And what the man from class was addressing was the increasing hostility that the Christ was experiencing at the hands of scoffing Pharisees, scribes, Sadducees, and others. They mocked; they tried to entrap and entangle Jesus, again and again, usually over some detail in Scripture. (Just let that sink in: you try to ‘entangle’ God the Son in theology? Um, okay; good luck with that.)

Text: Solomon wrote one of my favorite zingers in theology: “Commit your work to the LORD, and your plans will be established” (Pr 16:3, ESV). Know what that entails? The motive of the Christian must first be Godly; the Lord blesses Godly motives by way of fruitful ministry/output.

The commitment by the believer must first be to the Lord. It’s why Bach signed his musical pieces the way he did; it’s why C.S. Lewis wrote the way he did after he was converted; it’s why Flannery O’Connor was unflinching in her literary genius and her short story and novelistic portrayals of evil and hypocrisy. They’d all first committed to the Lord their giftedness. It wasn’t about them; it was about the truth of God. They understood their identity as servants of God.

Encouragement: The Lord sees. Do we believe that? I do. And it terrifies me. Why? Because I blow it–so often. I let my sin nature get the better of me. It’s possible I’m not alone. What if we labored to commit our best efforts first unto the Lord and His truth? Why? Because truth is inseparable from God, because God is truth and in Him is no darkness at all (1 John 1:5, ESV).