For several years I served as a SWAT team commander for a municipal police department. As you might imagine, pre-planned operations, namely serving high-risk search warrants, required a considerable amount coordination. The plan detailed the driving route to the target, the order in which the entry team was stacked, what weapon or tool each person was responsible for and a multitude of other particulars.
In preparation for one search warrant operation I assigned a breacher (the guy that hits the door) the responsibility of wearing a digital audio recorder. (This pre-dated body-worn cameras and was the standard for maintaining a record of events.) During the operational briefing at the police station I asked if he had his digital recorder, which he confirmed. Once on-scene, in the silent seconds before giving the command to initiate the warrant service, I told my breacher to start recording. He looked at me and said, “I can’t. I don’t have any batteries.” I was speechless with anger (not the righteous kind). We successfully executed the plan, albeit unrecorded, which was followed by an enthusiastically honest, private conversation with my breacher.
What I learned was that the officer had known that his recorder batteries were dead. He also knew that he was required to use the device regularly. Therefore, to acknowledge openly that he needed fresh batteries during the briefing would be to admit that he had not been using it. He intended to grab new ones before departing for the operation, and so, assured me that he would fulfill his assigned responsibility. Despite his “good intentions,” he failed himself and his team.
In Matthew 21 Jesus tells a brief, but powerful parable about the futility of spiritual good intentions.
“What do you think? A man had two sons. And he went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work in the vineyard today.’ And he answered, ‘I will not,’ but afterward he changed his mind and went. And he went to the other son and said the same. And he answered, ‘I go, sir,’ but did not go. Which of the two did the will of his father?” They said, “The first.” Jesus said to them, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes go into the kingdom of God before you. For John came to you in the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and the prostitutes believed him. And even when you saw it, you did not afterward change your minds and believe him. (Mt. 21:28–32)
Jesus was talking to a group of men that were convinced of their own righteousness. Having dotted all the right religious “i’s” and crossed all the right spiritual “t’s,” they had all the perceptible marks of holiness. As Jews they had the pedigree. As Pharisees they had the education. And, wearing the clothes befitting their revered office, they enjoyed an elevated social standing in public settings. If ever there was a group that projected confidence in a right standing before God, it was these men.
Jesus, however, exposed the hypocrisy of exclusively having good intentions. They read about the Messiah and even taught about Him, but they failed to submit to His authority when He was staring them in the face. Jesus made it clear that “playing religious” was not sufficient. Only genuine belief is.
Today, there are plenty of ways in which you can project all the right Christian vibes. You can dress the part, speak the language and attend all the right events. Perhaps you even have great intentions to live a life submissive to Christ, but your heart reality is different. When your desires are at odds with what pleases God, do you give yourself a “good intentions pass” while carrying on with what you really want?
Genuine, godly obedience is not a matter of appearance, but of the heart. True belief responds to the conviction of the Holy Spirit. It transforms self-pity to thankfulness, a self-serving attitude to compassion and self-righteousness to humility.
Ask God to help you identify the ways in which you are tempted to be a poser and to reveal to you the areas where you tend to give yourself a “good intentions pass.” Be the one that goes. When righteously convicted to serve, don’t be the one that says, “I can’t. I don’t have any batteries.”