This afternoon, I watched a video about motivation and how some motivating factors can accidentally be counterproductive. For example, if someone is offered a reward in return for doing a certain kind of behavior, that might encourage them to develop that kind of behavior, but they might only be motivated to do it so long as there's a sufficient reward involved. If the rewards stop coming or start failing to satisfy, the behavior may stop as well.
That may be part of the reason why the blessing of being righteous don't always come within this lifetime. If they did, people might act righteous, but only for the reward, which kind of undermines the whole idea of becoming righteous. God wants us to choose to be righteous because we're righteous people, not because we are being or will be rewarded for it.
Perhaps that's why most of the rewards of righteousness and punishments for wickedness don't happen in this life. Rewards and punishments can be somewhat motivating, but they shouldn't be our only motivators. We should be righteous for the sake of being righteous, not for the sake of a reward.
No comments:
Post a Comment