The Two Reasons: good and real.

Eph 4:14,15 "...henceforth be no more children....by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness...but speaking the truth..."

JP Morgan said: "Men have two reasons for doing a thing: the good one and the real one."

Has your wife ever asked you, "how does this dress look?" You reply, "gee, honey, you look great in that dress." What you really mean is that green dress is the ugliest I have ever seen. But you lie to save your marriage.

I have for years told my wife that I go hunting because I like bonding with my buddies, to bond with nature, enjoying the great outdoors, or telling stories by the campfire. Most hunting trips I come home empty handed. I try to hide my disappointment. Why? Because the real reason I go hunting is to kill something.

Those of us working just love our jobs, right? As long as they pay us. We will tell our customers how much our product will help them, how much we believe in our product because it helps them, and look how much it has helped us, right? But the real reason we sell a product isn't really for them, it is because we want to get paid. It is really for the money.

A pastor friend of mine told me a story once that further illustrates this point. He was in a car with 4 other pastors in downtown Dallas, Texas. One of the Pastors blurted out, "Wow, look at that great looking women!" Which they all looked and agreed, wow! (even Pastors are human) However, one of the men piously said, "I didn't notice anything, I don't look at other women." The driver then quickly pulled over and ordered the pious man out. He said, "get out because your are either a homosexual or a liar!" Even though the man was morally right, he was still a man (I think).

Have you ever over drafted your account? Of course you have, most people have made the mistake at least once. You go into your banker and you ask if they can reverse that $500 dollar overdraft charge. They might ask you why? You will tell them, "I thought I had enough money in my account." That is a perfectly good answer to his question. You do not want to tell him the real reason is because you forgot to write down a debt card purchase you made. You give them a perfectly good reason, because if they knew the real reason they would say sorry, but it isn't our job to keep track of your account.

This one might hurt some of you... You refinance your house to pay off all the consumer debt your have incurred. You are really coy about this one. Your refinancing your debt because you got a lower interest rate, and you might as well include all your debt. Good reason. You have now extended that 5 year car loan out 30 years, but that is okay. Because you know that the real reason is that if you go one more month with all the debt you have incurred your next stop might be a bankruptcy.

One more and I will let you go... The new candidate for President says that his plan will provide 5 zillion jobs in the next few years. He says that because that is what we want, a job or what he thinks we want to hear. That is a good reason. The real reason he says that is that he wants to be elected, and really has not a clue that his plan would work, but he did get elected.

I think that if we lived by the truth we would keep our mouths shut, be better citizens, do better work, accept responsibility, get ourselves in less trouble, live simpler lives, and just be better off.