TODAYS WORD FOR WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 10 2014.
MOTIVE
DEFINITION:
Intention; a determining impulse; the goal or object of a person’s action.
SCRIPTURE:
Search me, O God, and know my heart; try me, and know my anxieties; and see if there is any wicked way in me. Psalm 139:23-24.
KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE:
Recently
it was brought to our attention several times of situations where a
person was overpowering in trying to help someone in need and the
results were not positive.
It is very important to note
that we encourage you, because the scripture encourages us, to be
helpful to people in need. Most believers ignore the needy but God wants
us to reach out to help the needy.
With that in mind let us share with you several words of caution.
Have
you ever thought that you could be too helpful to someone? Have you
really thought about your true motive when you reach out to help a
person in need? Our helpfulness can actually make life more difficult
for the person we are trying to help, especially if our motive is
wrong. Your response probably is that that is impossible. Let us
explain what we think.
If you are bothersome to someone
that you are helping by being too available to the point of being
intrusive you could be hurting instead of helping your relationship with
that person. Possibly you are smothering, manipulative or controlling
when you try to help that person. What we do to help others should never
stem from a desire to make ourselves look good or feel good.
If
the help we are giving is driven by our own insecurities, we may be
just trying to make ourselves look good and give ourselves a “pat on the
back.” This is why we need to take a real good look at our motive as to
why we are helping someone. In Proverbs 21:2 it reads, “Every way of a
man is right in his own eyes, but the Lord weighs the heart.”
We
encourage you to look carefully at your reasons for helping someone
before you act. Does your desire to help come from a pure heart? Our
motives should always be to bring glory to God and not to ourselves.
We
should always pray first, for God’s direction. In prayer we can ask God
to show us any way we are hurting or hindering others. The scripture we
have written above would be a good prayer for you to pray. God will
answer your prayer.
If you have a concern that you may
be over stepping your welcome with someone, we suggest you ask God to
help you show love to that person that “suffers long and is kind --- and
is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not
provoked, thinks no evil,” as it is written in I Corinthians 13:4-5.
Keep asking the Lord to help you to show love with pure motives and for the good of others and not yourself.
LEARNING:
Our memory verse for this week is found in Romans 6:23:
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
PRAYER:
Help
me, Lord, to act and think today with proper motives. It is my prayer
that You will reveal the sins in my life, that would affect my motives,
so that I can help others with pure motives and with the love in my
heart that only you can give.