Thursday Devotional - Jesus is Truth – Knowing All Motives (10/5/23)

Sometimes it’s easy to figure out why one of my kids disobeyed, but other times it’s baffling. I think I know my kids well - what their interests are, what upsets them, and what their natural personality tendencies are. However, there are aspects of them I don’t know and understand.

Jesus knows everything about everyone! There isn’t anything that baffles Him! In fact, right after His first few miracles, He did not reveal more of Himself to many of the people because He knew their motives for believing in Him.  

John 2:23-25  ²³ Now while he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Festival, many people saw the signs he was performing and believed in his name. ²⁴ But Jesus would not entrust himself to them, for he knew all people. ²⁵ He did not need any testimony about mankind, for he knew what was in each person.

As I pray for wisdom on how to lead my kids, I acknowledge that Jesus knows them far better than I know them and He knows exactly what each one needs! I ask for a bit of His Omniscience!

Certainly, there are others in our lives where we need some of Jesus’ all-knowing insight as to how best to interact with them. Since Jesus can read everyone’s heart, He can also help us know whether we need to even interact with them at all! Let’s take these people and questions to Jesus for His all-knowing insight. 

Alice 

The Dumb Question

“It’s true that some are preaching out of jealousy and rivalry. But others preach about Christ with pure motives. They preach because they love me, for they know I have been appointed to defend the Good News. Those others do not have pure motives as they preach about Christ. They preach with selfish ambition, not sincerely, intending to make my chains more painful to me. But that doesn’t matter. Whether their motives are false or genuine, the message about Christ is being preached either way, so I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice.”  Philippians 1:15-18 NLT

One of the favorite things that I do in discussions (if your name is Loretta, my wife, call it an argument ☺), is what I call the ‘Kent dumb’ question.  These are questions that usually do one of two things.  One is to blatantly point out the obvious, which usually ends the discussion.  The other is when I feel there is something obvious that I am just plain missing.  For example when my daughter claims not to know where the missing cupcake is, the Kent dumb question is, “Mya, why is the cupcake wrapper in your bedroom?”  However, there are times where that so called ‘dumb’ question becomes a great one.  It’s great because often it is the dumb question that reveals something in a plan that no one has thought of.  These are important because it often is the difference between a great plan and a plan that sinks because no one ever asked that question.

It brought me to the very obvious question that we as Christians often wonder.  Am I doing what God asks of me?  When I make a stance on something, is it because it’s what God wants or what I want?  You see, these seem like dumb questions, but they are smart especially when we are not balanced in our approach to them.  Sometimes I allow my heart rule over me too much, and end up not doing what God wants me to do.  Other times, I let my literal sense lead because that’s what God’s law says, but in those cases, I am not as loving of others as God is as loving of me.  As a comedian once said about being a father, “We are dumb, but we are not so dumb.”

It is important that we always check our motives to ensure they are God driven.  God’s law is perfect, and so is His love for us.  But what if one conflicts with the other?  What do you say to the gay person who’s lost his loved one to AIDS?  Now I have not had to deal with this, but this is the dilemma.  How can I show God’s love without accepting or approving of the lifestyle?  You see for one side, it sounds simple.  God does not approve of the homosexual lifestyle, and as such, anything I do to uphold that is a sin.  Period.  That’s easy enough, right?  That’s exactly what happened in the South when they said slavery was acceptable (Note: They used scripture to prove that God approved of it because it wrote it explicitly God’s acceptance of it – see Exodus 20:10, 17 as prime examples).  The fact I bring this up does not mean I condone homosexuality.  It does mean that if we are not approaching it with God’s heart for the person, we are not following Christ for while He did love us for the person we would become, He also loved us right where we were.  I’m merely trying to point out we must truly understand our motives prior to saying one is right or wrong.

God wants all of us.  Mind, heart, and soul.  These will take us to places where we will feel very uncomfortable.  It will make us think when our hearts have led us astray, and soften our heart when our heads are stubborn.  Our goal is to love God and His word, and ask prayerfully for guidance.  So let us not be too simplistic in our approach to situations.  Let us always be willing to make God’s word truly living!  My prayer is that before we jump to the seemingly obvious answer, we pause to check our motives and ask The Dumb Question.’  Amen.