Developing Pure Motives

Call to Prayer

Title: Developing Pure Motives

By: Daniel Peter

Date: 11/03/2023

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.

Matthew 5:8 NIV

Preceding our birth in the faith is a spiritual warfare between the forces of evil and the force of Good. Though the victory is already given to us, we have been called to be aware of it and make war against the forces of darkness (2Cor.10:4), for our soul is the subject of this warfare.

Though these are spiritual forces, The environment of this warfare is the mind, which along side our will and emotions make up our soul. When Apostle Paul was speaking of this warfare, He said “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ (II Cor. 10:4‭-‬5 NKJV)”. The words arguments, knowledge, and thought reveals that the enemy’s focus of this warfare is the mind.

The reason the enemy attacks the mind is because the state of your mind will Influence the way you feel and the decisions you make, and a decision that is inspired by the devil leads to sin, which attracts judgement. Deception is the devil’s weapon, so we must not be ignorant of his wiles (Eph. 6:11, 2Cor. 2:11). One of such deceptive tricks of the enemy to make us unqualified for God’s blessings is the insertion of wrong motives in our minds. God’s desire to bless us, but if we are not desiring His blessings for the right reasons, we are disqualified from it.

When James wrote about this, he said “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures (James 4:3 NIV)”. Now, how do we resist the enemy in this regards? The first thing you do is to be aware of his tactics (2 Cor 2:11), the second thing is to renew our minds with the word of God (Rom. 12:1-2, Isaiah 7:14). Again, we judge ourselves by disallowing any evil thought and repenting of any one we must have allowed (1 Cor. 11:31).

Finally, we pray. This prayer can be done in different ways: by asking God to help you develop pure motives for the things you desire, casting and binding the spirit behind such evil thoughts, and praying in tongues for a long time often.

Prayer Point:

Let’s thank God for His word today. Let’s ask Him to purify our hearts and give us the right motives for the things we desire from Him.