What can I do for you?

We all have this consumer mentality in regards to relationships. The question is always, “What can you do for me?” That’s lust, my friends. Love asks the question, “What can I do for you?”

I just want to sidetrack to attribute the questions “What can I do for you?” and “What can you do for me?” to Timothy Keller. He made that distinction between lust and love. He posted elsewhere on his Facebook page, “Lust says, ‘What can you do for me?’ Love says, ‘What can I do for you?'”

We also have these superficial bases upon which we decide whom to choose to pursue or whom to entertain. It’s more often than not based on externalities. Say, for example, “She’s beautiful.” What happens if she’s not beautiful anymore? “She’s really nice to talk to.” What happens if there’s someone who comes along who’s better at carrying good conversations than she is? “She has all this and that.” What happens if she loses everything? Will you just leave her?

Personally, I believe that an objective basis should be the ground upon which we are to base our decisions. And obviously, God should be that basis because He’s the source of objective reality. God ordained marriage for His glory and purposes not ours. So, the questions should be, “What can we do for Him?”, “Will we be more like Jesus through this relationship?”, “Do I see myself joyfully submitting to his headship as my future husband?”, “Do I see myself sacrificially loving, providing, protecting, and leading her as my future wife?”, “Could we raise a godly heritage?”, “Could we, by the grace of God, make Christ-committed disciples and advance the kingdom of God?”

I’m so guilty of all of these and I don’t want to act like a self-righteous jerk like I often do. So, in spite of the inconsistency in what I think and in what I do, I do really hope that you’d consider the content of this post notwithstanding the person who posted this.

P.S. This is more of a preaching to my sinful self that needs to be put to death daily.