What are your motives?

Proverbs 16:2

All the ways of a man are pure in his own eyes, 

but the Lord weighs the spirit. 

We choose our actions. 

We design our own moral code where we decide that what we are doing is right.  Even when we know we are wrong, we convince ourselves we are right, ever done that? We do or say something we know we shouldn't, find our excuses (we usually call them reasons, but they are excuses) then we declare ourselves right by our own reasoning. So that we are 'pure' in our own eyes. We are in the clear according to our own sense of morality. We have justified our actions and declared ourselves, 'pure'. But we are only in the clear in our own eyes, probably not in anyone else's, and as for in God's eyes? 

If you think about it, if we even feel the need to justify ourselves, that indicates in itself that we are, deep down, probably not satisfied with our actions. We only need to justify ourselves if we feel our actions could be brought into question. So really, we know that our motives are not actually, 'pure' anyway. As for matching it up to God's expectations, well, there's no doubting that we probably all fall short!

God sees all we do. 

He sees it all. 

Every bit of our life. 

He sees the things we do and don't do, and he 'weighs our spirit'. God doesn't just look at our actions, He is interested in what informed your actions in the first place - your spirit. Suddenly that's much more serious. 

Justifying my actions is one thing, but the crux of the matter is that our actions are an overflow of what goes on deeper inside of us. They originate in our spirit. 

Our actions aren't just things we do - they are the overflow of how our spirit is. There's a popular song that has the phrase 'my soul is well'. Is yours well? 

Is that what is displayed through your actions? 

Whatever is going on in your spirit is not hidden, even though we think it is - we display it through our words and actions. 

So today, Determine your motives. What do yr actions say about the wellness of your spirit? 

Even if you won't spend time considering your motives, God will!