From Chapter Five, Why You Don't Have to Be Sure You Have the Right Motivations: Or, How Love Seeks the Good.
So what should you do if you do discover that you have bad motivations for doing good things? First of all, join the club. You are a fallen human being, and you too have a deceitful heart. So of course you have mixed motives all the time. [...]
That doesn't mean that you shouldn't do anything about it. But instead of trying to improve your motivations or find the right one, the thing to do is repent and confess your sins. [...]
This is a point we often get backward. For some reason, we think we can make Christianity attractive to non-Christians by telling them how God's Spirit has been working in our lives to make us such good, loving people -- so different from our nasty, unloving Christian neighbors. And we wonder why non-Christians think we're self-righteous! It's one thing for a former drug addict to testify about how Christ has turned his life around; but when nice, well-off people who have their lives together talk about how powerfully God is working in their hearts, it's obnoxious.
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