In Jeremiah 17:10 it says, “But I, the Lord, search all hearts and examine secret motives. I give all people their due rewards, according to what their actions deserve”. One can see throughout the bible how the Lords way of looking at things is entirely different from man’s view. He always examines the motive behind which the work is done than the work itself. In Job 02:11, we see how Job’s friends visited him to comfort him when calamity struck. They were Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar. We can see his three friends used the right scriptural language and tried to comfort him in this book, but from Gods viewpoint, the motive and spirit behind their words were not correct. We see that in Job 42:07-09. They did not speak accurately about God as Job did. In the end, Job had to pray for them as per God’s command and save them from God’s punishment for misrepresenting Him.
Similarly, we see in the gospels the example of the Pharisees. Their motives were not correct when they encountered the Lord Jesus in so many situations. In Mathew 12:10 it says, ‘And a man was there whose hand was withered. And they questioned Jesus, asking, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—so that they might accuse Him.’ We see how inwardly they wanted to bring charges against Jesus by pretending to care about the laws. They were not merciful and kind but pretended to be very religious outwardly but inwardly their motives were ungodly. Similarly, we read that on the judgment day many will say to God that they cast out demons and performed miracles but inwardly they were living in sin with wrong motives (Mathew 07:22-23). All our secret motives with which we do a work will be exposed in God’s presence. Let’s repent of these and be saved. The above ones are only a few examples from the bible. The Lord expects honesty both inside and outside.
So how can we have victory over our thoughts and keep our hearts pure? We should have complete faith in God with full dependence. In Hebrews 11:04 it says, “By faith Abel brought God a better offering than Cain did. By faith he was commended as righteous, when God spoke well of his offerings. And by faith Abel still speaks, even though he is dead.” We know how Abel offered his sacrifice. It was in faith. Most of our young brothers and sisters are falling in this area- our motives, our thoughts. Do you know why are they falling? It’s because of faithlessness. We may think that we are born in Christian families with godly parents teaching us and being there as an example for us, but often when we move to colleges and schools or when we start to stand on our own feet, we will start falling into the above mentioned sins without even knowing. One of the reasons behind this is faithlessness. When we see Abel, he didn’t have a bible to read or have anyone to teach him about all these things. But here we see in the verse that by faith he brought to God a better offering than Cain. Often when trials come to our lives only we start to understand faith. God’s purpose for us is to have faith in good and bad times. Then we will not have any secret motives like Pharisees and our heart will be clear. We read about an incident in 2 Samuel where David wanted to number the Israelites. There we see his secret motive because he lost his dependency on God.
The Lord expects honesty both inside and outside.
The Lord is on our side against all accusations from Satan. He is able to keep us in faith and courage just like the faith of Abel. We see that in Zechariah 03:01-05, “The Lord puts fine new clothes by taking away our sins.” We need to further encourage our brothers by following the example of Zechariah here.
May God gives us the grace to have right motives and keep our hearts pure and may we have faith in God so that, as young brothers and sisters, we may be able to stay pure and stand as a true testimony for Jesus wherever God is placing us. May God give such faith to us to bring our best to Jesus. When God examines our heart, may we get the best reward from Him. He is faithful to do so.
Praise and Thank God for his ways. May we do everything for God’s glory alone. God bless.
