Personal Work

A great problem in the church today is the inactivity of those who have knowledge, but fail to turn it into action. The church needs those who are constructively dissatisfied with things as they are and are striving to make them better. Such persons are self-motivated. Self-motivation is within the reach of each one of us.

There are three basic ways to motivate people and the Lord uses all three to motivate us.

FEAR MOTIVATION - that which causes a person to act because he is afraid of the consequences if he fails to act. Though the Lord used fear to motivate us, this was not His only method. A person, constantly threatened by fear, may soon become calloused and develop toleration for every fear he faces. Man sometimes has a way of putting far away the threat of punishment when this life is over. The punishment is not less certain, but when man can think of it as being a long way off, it loses some of its power to motivate. I believe this is why many do not obey the gospel. They think they still have plenty of time to do so.

INCENTIVE MOTIVATION- the opposite of fear motivation. Paul was motivated by fear but a stronger influence in his life was incentive motivation. "Yea doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ," "If by any means I might attain unto the resurrection of the dead." Phil. 3:8,11. The key to incentive motivation is appetite. Consider the example of the horse moving forward to reach a carrot dangling from a stick strapped to his back. But if he has just been fed all he wanted to eat, he will have no desire to reach the carrots. Incentive motivation has certain limiting factors.