Following Jesus for All the Wrong Reasons

They were excited about following the King--but for all the wrong reasons. I am afraid that many of us respond to Jesus in the same way. What moves and motivates everything we do is not a submission to God's will and a burning desire for his glory, but our own set of personal desires and dreams. We are excited about the King because we see him as the most efficient delivery system for those dreams. You can tell what really excites us when we fall into discouragement and grumbling, when he does not deliver the "good" that we want. The lips that once praised now complain, and the lips that once encouraged now accuse.

--Paul David Tripp, War of Words: Getting to the Heart of Your Communication Struggles (Phillipsburg, NJ: P & R, 2000), 89.