Checking Our Motives

"If anyone builds on this foundation using gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay or straw, their work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each person’s work. If what has been built survives, the builder will receive a reward. If it is burned up, the builder will suffer loss but yet will be saved—even though only as one escaping through the flames.
1 Corinthians 3:12-15

Before Paul wrote this passage, he wrote about how believers at the first church in Corinth were acting worldly, they were jealous and quarreling with one another and some were following one leader, some another and the rest someone else. (1 Cor 3:1-4)

He goes on to tell them that their leaders (including him, Paul) were merely servants who were graciously assigned their tasks by the Lord -- doing their best to accomplish the ministry that was entrusted to them. (1 Cor 3:5-6)

After that he said "no one can lay any foundation other than the one already laid, which is Jesus Christ". And Jesus himself laid the foundation. All of us, are merely building on top of that.

Now what Paul is instructing us (and the early leaders of the church) above in the same chapter (verses 12-15) is that we should build on that foundation with things that are not perishable and will withstand the refining fire of the Lord.

And if not, or when we do our work for the Lord using the wrong materials, or with the wrong motive, with the wrong method and on the wrong foundation, then all of our work will be burned up at the Day of Judgment.

When we do things for the Lord, we should always check our hearts, check with the Lord and test the spirits with everything that we think, do and say -- especially us who are entrusted with the work the Lord himself assigned to us.

Let us meditate on 1 Corinthians 3 (the Church and its Leaders) and let the Lord renew our mind, quiet our soul, strengthen our spirit and encourage us until the Day of the Lord. Click below.

1 Corinthians 3 NIV