Checking our Motives

Live Well, Live Wisely

"Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here’s what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It’s the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn’t wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn’t wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn’t wisdom. It’s the furthest thing from wisdom—it’s animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you’re trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others’ throats." James 3:13-16 MSG

This is yet another powerful 3:16 verse, if you read every other version of James 3:16 (except the MSG above), it is simply written as something like this: " For wherever there is jealousy and selfish ambition, there you will find disorder and evil of every kind."

Paul said our God is not a God of disorder, and so if there is "disorder" in any aspect of our life or even at church, we know this is not from the Lord but in fact it is from the enemy, stemming from every kind of jealousy, envy, selfishness, self interest or own personal selfish agenda, strife, rivalry, contention, factionalism and a general thinking that we are better than everybody else.

And with this, the results are evident, explosive and destructive: confusion, unrest, chaos, insurrection, anarchy, free-for-all, anything goes and really every evil deed. Sounds familiar?

If we really yearn for Godly order in our daily and even church life, then let us just be true to ourselves and wise up. Let us heed James 3:16, and gently allow the Holy Spirit to check our motives at the door and let Him be the One who moves us in everything we think, say and do. It's really the only way. Our way will just lead us to a dead-end street, a long winding path to really nowhere, or we're simply be going around in circles and thus not really reaching the place that our Lord wants us to be in.

In heeding our own selfish feelings and own agenda, our flesh might be happy for a season but our inner-self, our spirit, our loved ones, the people the Lord has sent us, and the Holy Spirit will be crying at all the lost opportunities.