Understand Motivation

Proverbs 16:2 (NLV) 2All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the thoughts of the heart.

• (MSG) "Humans are satisfied with whatever looks good; GOD probes for what is good."

• Job 31:6 (NIV) Let God weigh me in honest scales and he will know that I am blameless...

• I Sam 2:3 (NIV) [Hannah's prayer] 3 "Do not keep talking so proudly or let your mouth speak such arrogance, or the LORD is a God who knows, and by him deeds are weighed.

• Psalm 86:11 (MSG) "Train me, GOD, to walk straight; then I'll follow your true path. Put me together, one heart and mind; then, undivided, I'll worship in joyful fear."

• I Cor. 4:5 (NLT) When the Lord comes, he will bring our deepest secrets to light and will reveal our private motives. And then God will give to everyone whatever praise is due.

• James 4:3 (NLT) And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong--you want only what will give you pleasure.

• Rev. 2:23 (AMP) And all the assemblies (churches) shall recognize and understand that I am He Who searches minds (the thoughts, feelings, and purposes) and the [inmost] hearts, and I will give to each of you [the reward for what you have done] as your work deserve.  

Motives weighed. Deepest secrets exposed. Thoughts, feelings and purposes searched out.

So, I'm thinking as I write this:  Just what are my motives in writing these daily thoughts? Are they pure or self-serving? Am I looking for affirmation or am I affirming the work of the Spirit in my heart? I would like to think that my motives are pure. That my motives are built on the power of Spirit and not my "power." That I have trained my mind when writing these to be open to the leading of the Spirit not some supposed ability to exegete a passage.

My sense is that we humans often don't think critically about our training - I know that I did not. We accepted our culture's focus on "me" with a spirit of timidity, not wanting to shake the boat. The Psalmist understood that we must be intentional about God training us and integrating our hearts, minds and soul so that we reflect the mind of Christ is what we think, what we do and what we say. But we can be so easily fooled. What we think about ourselves is declared to be suspect by the One who created us. He warns us that we cannot trust ourselves. Those thoughts must come from prayerful consideration. And even then we must be careful - James warns us that even our prayers can be suspect - they can be all about us, about what gives us pleasure, and not about Him. The chief end of man is to glorify God - give God pleasure. I find that challenging. I can see how easily our culture has sucked us into looking at the appearance and not critically thinking about the motivations behind the appearance. Performance cannot be sloppy and be pleasing to God. But performance if its own sake is one of those slippery slopes that can seduce.

When what we do is about us and not about Him, our motives are wrong. Hard to weigh that one. Our scales are weighted in our favor.

What motivates you? What motivates me?

Copyright (c) 2006 by P. Griffith Lindell