What Are Your Motives?

„People may be pure in their own eyes, but the Lord examines their motives.“

(Proverbs 16:2 NLT)

What is a motive? A motive is the underlying reason for any action we take. 

Human hearts are very deceitful, so it makes it easy to deceive ourselves about our own motives.

Were you planning on helping someone financially? Were you planning on opening a website to share the word of God? Were these plans just out of  selfish reasons or did they come out of a  pure heart? Did you want others to see that you were doing good so that they may speak good of you or did you do it without thinking of people’s opinion but first looking unto Jesus? Whatever the reason may be just know that God sees it.

We can pretend that we are choosing certain actions for God or the benefit of others, when in reality we have selfish reasons. God is not deceived by our selfishness. God sees everything we do and knows our heart ( Hebrews 4:12).

Human beings have different reasons for doing something. These are often of negative motives; pride, anger, revenge etc. None of these motives pleases God in any way ( Romans 8:8). It is good to pray but if the motive of your request to God is wrong then how do you expect God to answer the prayer? God can’t and will never be mocked (Galatians 6:7)! He is a God that sees and knows everything we do (Psalm 33:13). God even evaluates the condition of our hearts when we give offerings to Him (Corinthians 9:7).

„And even when you ask, you don’t get it because your motives are all wrong—you want only what will give you pleasure“(James 4:3 NLT).

There are many preachers and prophets who preach out of impure motives. Jesus spoke against such acts and warned us to be careful ( Matthew 6:1).  Any Christian who ministers must be careful not to do it out of selfishness, because ministry was created by God out of pure reasons. We minister to our father who is our Holy God.

Beloved in the Lord, I know you would now be asking yourself what the right reasons or motives are. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 says that our purpose here on earth is to please God with our works and not to please man, because God is the one who searches the heart of man. God is more interested in our motives and less of our actions. 1 Corinthians 4:5 says that, when Jesus comes again, ’’…He will bring to light the things now hidden in darkness and will disclose the purposes of the heart. Then each one will receive his commendation from God“.

God wants us to understand that He knows why we do what we do and desires to reward all believers whose hearts are right towards Him. Let us therefore keep our motives pure towards Him by wholly surrendering our hearts to Him.

Prayer Point: 

Let’s thank God for the answers to our prayers. Let’s pray that God help us to live a life of pure motives, so that He can be proud of us.

God bless you all.

If this has blessed you, please share this Call to Prayer with your friends and family so they will be blessed too. 

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