Inner motives

One Sunday morning, two men are out in a boat, fishing. After several hours on the lake without catching a single fish, one of the men says to his friend, "You know, we probably should have stayed home and gone to church this morning."

The other man says, "Well, I could have stayed home, but I couldn't have gone to church."
"Why's that?" asks his friend.

"My wife is sick," the fisherman answers.

It's an interesting thing - motives or why we do the things we do. Sometimes I don't even know why I do the things I do much less try to figure out why you do what you do.

Yet we insist on trying - especially in the kingdom of God.

It can become a trap; and a place of bondage for the follower of Christ.

Why do you do what you do?

Most of the time that's not for me to figure out. In fact, I would suggest that it's basically a fruitless and many times a carnal exercise to spend an enormous amount of time examining people's motives.

Jesus said, "By their fruits you will know.....".

It's important for me to react to those around me based not only why I think they are doing what they are doing, but on what they are actually doing.

Who knows why?

May we be filled with grace toward those who are graceless toward us.