If any of you follow me on social media you know that I enjoy humor. With all the chaos in the world we need to laugh when we can. Occasionally, I post serious things; usually personal experiences or thoughts. The other day I had an epiphany that I was a cynic. Just so we’re clear, the definition of cynic is: a person who believes that people are motivated purely by self-interest rather than acting for honorable or unselfish reasons. I do not believe this about all people, but I found myself thinking that I knew “why” someone did what they did instead of simply taking the actions at face value.
When we begin to think we know “why” people do what they do we become judgmental and condemning. Hebrews 4:12-13 tells us, “For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” (ESV) The Word of God is the only thing that can discern the intents of the heart.
The Word, referred to elsewhere in scripture as the Sword of the Spirit, can separate motives from actions. I cannot. The only person I can truly know the motives behind actions is myself. The only way I can discern if my motives are pure is to measure them against the Word. This is not as simple as it sounds. We can talk ourselves into thinking that most any action can be justified. This is one of the reasons for the busy-ness of our society. We keep ourselves occupied so we do not have time for introspection; the time required to judge the thoughts and intents of our heart.
In one of the devotions I did during the 21 Days of Prayer, I shared on 2 Corinthians 10:4-6, which says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” We take these thoughts captive by, first of all, spending time contemplating our own actions to determine the “why” behind our actions. If our motives are found to be impure, we must submit them to the Word of God – punish disobedience – by confessing our failure and accepting the grace from God to destroy the arguments and lofty opinions which try to displace His Truth.
So, from one recovering cynic to another (hopefully), let us consider our own motives and leave the motives of others alone.
Blessings!
Dudley
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