Inspiring Change Every Day with Grace
What God Sees Beyond Our Actions
The human heart is a mystery. We see actions, but God sees intentions. We justify decisions, but He weighs motives.
Every choice we make, every word we speak, and every gesture we extend carries a motive behind it. It is easy to assume that good actions equate to good intentions, but Scripture repeatedly reminds us that a pure heart is more important than a polished image.
Many times, we do the right things for the wrong reasons. The Pharisees in Jesus’ time were masters of this; they prayed, fasted, and gave to the poor, yet their hearts craved recognition, not righteousness.
“All a person’s ways seem pure to them, but the Lord weighs the motives” (Proverbs 16:2). What we may perceive as selfless can, in reality, be deeply self-serving. If the human heart is deceitful, how then do we assess our intentions?
Our intentions are shaped by experiences, desires, fears, and beliefs. They are not always malicious, but they can be misaligned. A person who constantly seeks validation may perform acts of kindness not out of love, but out of a deep hunger for acceptance.
Someone may appear generous but secretly struggles with a need for control. Even in relationships, one might extend love not as a gift but as an investment, expecting a return. So, intentions reveal the condition of the heart, and the heart cannot hide forever.
God is not fooled by the external. Throughout the Bible, He calls people to examine their hearts, to search their innermost thoughts and to submit them to Him.
David, despite his failures, understood this when he prayed, “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts” (Psalm 139:23). He recognized that without God’s guidance, his heart could lead him astray. This is true for us as well. It is not enough to behave right; we must desire right.
To align our motives with God’s will, we must surrender to God’s guidance, allowing God to refine our hearts, even when it means exposing painful truths. It calls for transformation, where we move from self-seeking actions to God-honouring intentions.
There will be moments when our motives are unclear, even to us. We may wrestle with mixed intentions, wanting to do good while battling selfish desires. But that is where grace meets us.
The goal is not perfection, but progress. A heart that longs to please God, even when imperfect, is already on the path to purity. With time and surrender, our motives can shift from self to service, from gain to genuine love, and from performance to purpose.
Finally, let’s remember, we may be able to fool people, but we cannot fool God. He does not judge as humans do, He looks at the heart. And in His presence, there is no need for pretence. Only a deep, refining love that calls us to be real, to be whole, and to be transformed from the inside out.
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Have you ever done something “good” only for God to convict you later about the motive behind it? How did that moment shape your walk with Him?
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