Hebrews 10:24 NLT "Let us think of ways to motivate one another to acts of love and good works".
There you have it. Can we say that motivating others to acts of love and good works is a way of expressing our sincere love for them? That might take a minute of two to settle in but we do so much for others as acts of love that I think motivating them to acts of love is another way we can show our love. In fact, we may already be doing just that without thinking about it.
Doing acts of love changes us and does something to us deep inside. Knowing that and motivating those we care about brings them those same wonderful internal feelings and satisfactions. Of course, receiving those wonderful feelings is not our motivation for doing such acts, we do those things out of the love deep in our being that the Lord has planted in us. Again, we love because He first loved us.
Our encouragement to others may be done in obvious ways and not so obvious ways. I think of our loving actions toward others as one of those not so obvious forms of motivating. When we are just being ourselves and loving on others, what we do leaves a wonderful impression on another, even something they may be motivated to do for another. Simply put, we unknowingly motivate by being a good example to those around us.
A more obvious way of motivating is by sharing the opportunities we have experienced in doing loving and good deeds to others. That discussion and the sharing of how we are blessed in such acts and the response of those we show kindness to can be motivating and encouraging. In the world today practicing random acts of love, kindness and good deeds does motivate others who see them. I have seen television commercials showing how a person witnesses a good deed, then he/she does a good deed and so on, person after person until is has gone full circle. With a mindset of looking for opportunities to be loving, who knows how far such deeds can spread far without any of us ever knowing.
Let me share an example. I was on a men's renewal weekend years ago. We had a last minute signup who came in and sat at our table. I was the table leader that particular weekend. This man has just been through a life changing difficult time and was hurt badly. We went through the weekend and he was sincerely touched. There is a point in the weekend that each table goes into a room by themselves and each table member prays out loud. Each of us table leaders wore a hand made cross necklace constructed of two crude nails wired into a cross. I took mine off and it was passed to each person to hold while he prayed. This particular man prayed and shared and was overcome with the freeing grace of God. When he finished, he passed the cross back to me and I closed our prayer time. As we walked out of the room, I felt a God given nudge to give that man my cross. He was overwhelmed and touched, expressed by the tears washing down his cheeks and we have been great friends ever since.
It has been years since that happened and he has talked of that moment many times because it moved him so much. It was just an effortless but heartfelt gesture on my part, an act of caring and love toward a brother who was hurting. What none of could ever have imagined was that soon after that weekend this man had a dream. In that dream he handed a similar cross to a homeless man standing on a corner. In the dream he had an awareness that that cross was the 100,000th one he had given away. We all have dreams but to that man it was a holy mission and I know that he has paid for all the parts, has hand made and given away just shy of 13,000 crosses at no cost to the reciepients. That is amazing in itself but also know that his hand made crosses have made their way all around the world. People have taken them on mission trips, vacations and mailed them to people in far away lands. He has gotten emails from all over asking for crosses to which he always makes sure their requests are filled ... and he still supplies the renewals with crosses. Can you imagine the cost of materials and the hours and hours of tedious labor he has invested in making those cross necklaces?
Who can ever imagine what a simple act of love or goodness might birth? For me it was just a simple, effortless, gesture driven by God that moved my heart to give something to that man that might bring him some peace. To him is was something that gave him an enormous ministry of supplying 100,000 people with a free cross. God can take the smallest of things and do world changing thins with them. We may not always see or know what happens but we can trust that God uses the smallest of our loving efforts to do world changing things. We can trust that the smallest of efforts will somehow come to bring honor to God.
Let me close with Hebrews 6:10-11 NLT. "For God is not unjust. He will not forget how hard you have worked for Him and how you have shown your love to Him by caring for other believers, as you still do. Our great desire is that you will keep on loving others as long as life lasts, in order to make certain that what you hope for will come true".
I will not elaborate on these verses so that your heart and His Spirit will communicate in a way that He wants and you need.
Love Somebody. Love Everybody. Motivate others to do the same. God's richest blessings to you all.