God Knows

You might fool yourself, but you can't fool God.

Want to talk yourself into doing something? It's not that hard. Spend enough time thinking about something, even something you know is wrong, and you can convince yourself it's not wrong after all. If it feels good, and no one gets hurt, then what's the problem, right? After all, it's not nearly so bad as what that other guy did.

You can also convince yourself that as long as you do the "right thing," it doesn't matter how you feel about it. It doesn't matter that you're mad at the world because you had to give up your golf outing to go to your kid's ballgame. You did the right thing; that's all that matters, right?

It's pretty easy to convince yourself. It's something altogether different to fool God.

God doesn't just look at what we do.

God looks at our heart. He investigates our motives. He sees down deep inside us, all those unspoken thoughts, all those dark musings about what we'd rather be doing. What we do is just the tip of the iceberg. God knows what lies beneath the murky waters.

Isn't that a scary thought? Knowing that God not only sees what we do, but why we do it, and what we truly would have rather done? It's scary to me, because that means I can't just do the "right thing," I have to do it for the right reasons, or not do it at all.

Yesterday I said, "Just do it . . . for the right reasons."

Today I say, "If you can't do it for the right reasons, don't do it at all!" You might think your ways are innocent because you did what you were supposed to do. But why did you do it? Did you do it so other people would see you? Did you do it to win favor? Did you do it so you wouldn't have to sleep on the couch that night?

Motives matter. Doing the right thing is important. You cannot, however, do the right thing with the wrong motive. The "why" is as important as the "what."  

Before you decide to do something, check your heart. If your motivations are less than pure, don't do it. What are pure motivations? A desire to serve and please God, obedience to His Word, compliance with what His Spirit is telling you to do.

Go outside that box, and God will surely know.

Today, as you are deciding what to do, remember this:

God's not only going to see what you do, He's going to know why you're doing it.