WHY DO YOU DO WHAT YOU DO?

I have been struck with that thought recently. Why do you do what you do? Maybe it is the end of another school year and graduation for several of you that has made me think about that so much. The reason it has come up is as I have been praying for and thinking about you students, especially the graduates (including one of my daughters), I have been wondering what the road ahead may hold for you all. As you graduate high school you are entering a new stage of life. It is a very exciting stage, and a very different one. You are leaving behind a stage of life called childhood. In a lot of ways it is the first time you have had to begin to make important decisions on your own. For many they are prepared for this. For many others they seem not to be. What is the difference? Well I think it has to do with the question we asked in the title of this post, "Why do you do what you do?" For the first time in a lot of students life they realize that the reason they do what they do is because of parents, or teachers, or family, or a particular peer group, even a youth group. All of those things may be beneficial protections in our lives, but what happens when they are gone. If you don't have an inner set of values, convictions, and standards that guide your decision making process you can find yourself in places and circumstances that you would never have imagined. What I mean is if you are only controlled by the exterior structures placed around you and then upon graduation and going off to college you find those boundaries removed you can end up not knowing who you are. I think that is what Paul may be referring to in Philippians 2:12:
"So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling;"
Paul's reference to obeying much more in his absence is reminding the Philippian' believers that it is not Paul who is their motivation for obedience. In other words Paul says don't do what you do because of me. Do it in light of God's salvation being worked out in your life. As he goes on to say it is God who is at work (continually) in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure. So what does that mean for you students? Well, why do you do what you do? Is it because you belong to Christ? Does it come out of the reality of who you are in Him? Do you have a faith of your own? Does the Lord Jesus Christ live within you and does the fact that you are His child energize your every decision? When you are left to your own decisions are you being led by Christ? Let me encourage us all to give that some thought!