Skip to main content

How Your Motives are Affecting Your Relationship with God

Sometimes, a really important message is best when it comes straight from the horse's mouth. So here's one of the most eye-opening UCB daily messages of the year, for me, so far. Enjoy!

"When Ananias and Sapphira saw others selling their land and giving the proceeds to the church so the poor could be cared for, they thought it was a great idea - in theory. However, when they sold some land they withheld part of the money and then lied about it. They wanted increased visibility and spiritual status without paying retail for it. They wanted to ‘look the part’ without having to pay the price. 

But Peter exposed their sin, saying, ‘You didn’t lie to people. You lied to God!’ (Acts 5:4 CEV). Not only were their motives exposed, they both dropped dead. And as a result, ‘Great fear gripped the entire church and everyone else who heard what had happened’ (v. 11 NLT). 

One pastor says: ‘Numerous Sundays I’ve preached a message that deeply moved the members of my congregation. But ironically I’d “prepared” by arguing with my wife on the way to church, or making life miserable for my children. Years of practice came to my rescue and I easily morphed into “the pastor”, becoming instantly compassionate, holy, and spiritual. I was faking … [because] feeling needed, respected, and wanted can become as great a motivation as love for Christ.’ 

When it comes to examining your motives, here are two Scriptures you need to read and consider carefully and prayerfully: 
1) ‘The LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you.’ 
2) ‘I the LORD search the heart and examine the mind, to reward a man according to his conduct, according to what his deeds deserve’ (Jeremiah 17:10 NIV)"

 Source

Kunmi x

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Simple, Practical Solution To Reading More of Your Bible

At the beginning of the year, I decided I wanted to read the entire Bible - for the second time - in a year. (I also started using these amazing reading plans on my even more amazing Bible app, YouVersion. It's awesome; check it out! )  My aim is to get more of God's word into my head, mind and heart, and as a result, get to know Him better, as... "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was  God." (John 1:1) Simple, yeah? If God and His Word are one, then by getting to know one more, I get to know the other, right? But to achieve my goal, I obviously had to carve out more time to read God's Word.  Now, truth be told, I often find reading the Bible a little bit tedious (I'll have you know God appreciates my honesty), ESPECIALLY when it gets to certain, not-so-Jesus-loves-you-you-can-do-no-wrong-everything-is-all-GOOD chapters like Numbers, Leviticus and a few others (let's cut them some slack, shall we?). But I rea...
2 comments
Read more

What Teaching Young Kids About The Holy Spirit Taught Me

I'm lucky enough to teach a lovely, lively bunch of children at Sunday School every week. Two weeks ago, at a Saturday session at church, I had learnt more about the Holy Spirit, who He really is and why we have Him (and need Him). Immediately, I thought: Hey, this is a great lesson to teach the kids soon. Yesterday, I decided today would be the perfect day to approach this topic with my young squad. I particularly thought this was a good idea because I needed to learn more about the Holy Spirit. While preparing to teach, I researched how to go about teaching younger children about this not-so-easy topic. You hear so much about God and Jesus, but not that much about the Holy Spirit (which they affirmed today, btw). I got help from this great Sunday School website, which suggested to use a great visual analogy: An egg. An egg is made up of three parts: The shell, egg white and yolk. Although the different parts exist, it's still an egg; each part is 'folded' into ...
2 comments
Read more

What I Really Learnt About Prayer This Week

With prayer and I, it's been a mostly up-and-down relationship. We haven't always seen eye-to-eye, we've fallen out of love quite a few times, and we've oftentimes flat out ignored each other over the years. Luckily, it's been more on the 'up' lately, for which I am super glad, because God knows I need it more than anything. The real transformation came when I realised that I didn't have to say the "right" things when I prayed, speak 'Christianese' (meaningless words that God is supposed to be impressed with), or lie to God about how/what I was feeling. A good friend of mine, Jen, once said, "Don't tell God, 'Oh Lord, I just want to worship Your holy name', when in fact you are about to combust from pain, sorrow, difficulties and frustration." That statement TOTALLY changed the way I pray. Now, that's not to say that I only run to God to cry about my problems (there's ALWAYS something), and I am complet...
Post a Comment
Read more