Anonymous Asks (410)

“What does God say about avoiding sin just because we are scared of the consequences? Is resisting temptation meaningless if fear is the only reason we are godly?”

Jesus taught that love is the best motive for obedience, though he wasn’t the first to do so. Even the Law of Moses has the correct motive built right into it. When asked about the most important commandment in the Law, Jesus quoted two commands to love: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength” and (in second place) “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

Then he said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Love and avoiding sin go together better than chocolate and peanut butter.

The Fear of the Lord

Still, as our question points out, people resist temptation to sin for lots of reasons other than love. Fear is a big one. The religious world is full of scared people, and I don’t just mean Christendom. Islam is a scary religion, and it gets men behaving better, at least in some respects. You do not find too many Pride parades in Islamic nations, or too many obvious temptations to lust. Still, on any Top Ten of Best Motives, fear is well down the list. “Whoever fears,” writes the apostle John, “has not been perfected in love.” Perfect love casts out fear.

That acknowledged, obedience because we are scared of what might happen is still preferable to disobedience. It tells the world that we believe God is real, powerful and capable of judging. It’s certainly better than giving up trying to please him and doing whatever we want.

We should probably not be binary thinkers about spiritual things. In seeking to honor the Lord with our motives, we are not choosing between meaninglessness or perfection. Motives exist on a spectrum. Moving from poor motives to good motives, then to better and best should be the desire of all serious Christians.

The Beginning of Wisdom

Fear is a perfectly good starting point for a young believer, but that’s what it is: a beginning. As it is written, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” It’s the smart play. A young man or woman who considers all the choices before him, then says, “I’d better eliminate this one, God might judge me for it” is not being stupid. He’s being prudent, and the Lord will honor that choice. Resisting temptation is never a bad thing. But resisting out of fear is your baseline, your starting point. The Lord’s desire is that we should move on from that.

When John talks about becoming perfected in love, that Greek word he uses is teleioō. It’s the goal of a process, the finish line we should all want to cross running at full speed. My ESV translates one of its related words seven times as “mature”. Mature Christians avoid sin and resist temptation because they love the Lord, just as the Old Testament commands. Immature Christians avoid sin and resist temptation because they are scared of the consequences.

That doesn’t make their obedience meaningless. It just means they are at still at the starting gate in the Christian life. God is at work in their hearts, and he will make them perfect in time. He’s certainly changed my reasons for doing things over the years.

The Will of the Father

When it comes to doing the will of the Father, Jesus once told a parable about a man with two sons. He asked both to go work in the family’s vineyard. One son refused, then later felt guilty and went after all. The other said, “I will, sir”, but did not go. Jesus asked which of the two did the will of his father. The answer, of course, is the son who went to the vineyard, even if he went grumbling all the way.

It wasn’t a perfect performance, but it was way better than the other guy. Do the will of the Father. The right motive will come with time.