Above Only Devotional March 4, 2020 How waiting on God can help us check our Motives

Above Only Devotional

March 4, 2020

How waiting on God can help us check our Motives

James 4:2-3 (AMPC) You are jealous and covet [what others have] and your desires go unfulfilled; [so] you become murderers. [To gratification, the contentment, and the happiness that you seek], so you fight and war. You do not have, because you do not ask. [Or] you do ask [God for them] and yet fail to receive, because you ask with wrong purpose and evil, selfish motives. Your intention is [when you get what you desire] to spend it in sensual pleasures.

God is very interested in the motive you have in your heart for that desire that you want from Him. He always wants what is best for us, but He knows that when we have wrong motive in our hearts, the things that we want can become harmful to us in the long run. To pray amiss is to have the wrong motive while praying. Do you want that thing because everybody around you has it or is doing it or because you know it is God’s will for you and you want to honour and being Him glory with it? It is not always because you have the wrong motive that your desire has not manifested. Many times it is because God has a better plan for you. But the time of waiting is a good opportunity to check your motives and make sure that they are in line with God’s righteous will and counsel.

Waiting and yielding yourself to God’s leading and counsel is very important. Ephesians 1:11, “God works all things according to the counsel of His will.” Psalm 106:13-15, “They soon forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel: But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert. And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul”. They got what they wanted quite alright, but in the end, they were empty and it did not contribute to any meaningful progress and fulfillment in their lives as they actually thought it would. They became sick. Deuteronomy 8:2 says, “And thou shalt remember all the way which the Lord thy God led thee these forty years in the wilderness, to humble thee, and to prove thee, to know what was in thine heart, whether thou wouldest keep his commandments, or not”. The state of your heart while you are waiting on God is very important. Your desire for that thing must not be more than your desire for God and doing His will.

Prayer:

Pray in the Spirit right now and ask God to help you to always have the right motive of love and pleasing Him in all your prayers and desires.

Bible in one year reading plan: Numbers 32-34, Mark 9:30-50.