Why I Blog, Tweet, & Facebook (2of3)

The second of three posts the first may be read here

While reading through Edwards’ “The End for which God Created the World” I began realizing two major things. 1) That the motivation or intentionality behind the vast majority of why I studied and read so vigorously was wrong. 2) The passion that was in my heart for ministry may not have been my own passion (this was first suggested by a dear friend then reiterated through this reading).

First, I’ll explain the first point (novel idea) motivations/intentionality.

Most may believe pastors to have pure motives to study and learn as much about God as possible. False. We, pastors, are just as much sinners as any other believer. Therefore we have tainted motives just like any other believer.

Confession: the vast majority of all the study I did before I was a pastor was for the sole purpose of becoming a pastor. The end to which I toiled and strove was for the gaining of a position…

Edwards, through the implementation of God, showed my intentions to be what they truly were, fake. For the end for which God created the world was for his own glory. But the end for which Sam studied the Bible was for Sam’s own glory… Do you see the disconnect? See the fakeness? The reason for studying is the glory of God, not self.

(For very clear evidence of this look in this blogs history, 2010, and see the very visible gap of no posts from February to August. I write because I'm learning. This gap is the gap of someone who thinks they have arrived and no longer need to learn, which is a stupid idea.)

Second, my living a life of borrowed passion.

There are few men who can preach like John Piper, Mark Driscoll, and Matt Chandler theses dudes can bring it. But here is, again, where I fell off the map. In listening to these men I gleaned not only information but also their intensity. The passion they had for something become the reason I was passionate about something. I was not passionate about the Gospel because it is, “the power of God to salvation (Rom 1:16)” I was passionate about the Gospel because it was the strength of the way Mark Driscoll talked about it…

This, my friends, is called sin. On both counts, on the count of studying for prominence and preeminence, guilty, on the count of someone-else centered passion (as opposed to God-centered passion), guilty. The depth of these I am still mining, but they are now known sins to me (and you).