A Guy who gets the Difference

Preachers spend a lot of time trying to get their hearers to really *get* the difference between (a) and (b). Specifically, to ditch (a), and to embrace (b):

(a) Do lots of good stuff in order to make God like you.
(b) Because God loves you, you will/can/want to/even must do good stuff.

We go to great lengths to highlight the difference. We dream up illustrations. We analyse the motivations and thought-worlds that drive all of us toward each. We thump pulpits...

So it's kinda weird to read that whole (a) vs (b) thing taken-up as an illustration in a thoroughly secular setting. Guy Kawasaki casually drops it into his new little book for entrepreneurs. Here it is:

"... don’t revise your product to get prospective customers to love it. Instead, revise it because customers already love it. Let me put it in religious terms: Some people believe that if they change, God will love them. Others believe that since God loves them, they should change. The latter theory is the prototype to keep in mind for how to get going and keep going for startups." Guy Kawasaki, The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, 13 (my emphasis).

Weird.

For the record,

"This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another." 1 John 4:10-11.

It's (b), not (a). *thumps pulpit*

There I go again ;)