Daily Power #111

When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

The motives you carry into your prayers matter to God. Over and over again in the New Testament, we see Pharisees, the Jewish religious leaders of Jesus’ day, praying with wrong motives. They usually wanted to show off their self-righteous pride. “Hey, did you hear what a beautiful prayer I prayed? Wasn’t it amazing? And I’m so humble about it too.”

God’s not fooled; he knows our hearts and what’s behind our prayer requests. And if we’re honest, we’ve all prayed with selfish motives before. “Oh, Lord, let me win the lottery! If I win, I promise to give you half!” But God might be thinking, “Hmm, you’re not giving me a tenth now! You’re not really thinking about giving. You’re really just thinking about yourself.”

Sometimes we pray for other people just to make our own lives easier. “God, please give my boss that big promotion! And if I end up getting her job, well, that’s okay too.” Rather than disguising our request as kindness toward others, we should just be honest with God. When we tell our Father the truth, we can often talk ourselves out of the request we were originally going to make! Our motives truly matter to God.

If God answered every prayer you prayed last week, what would be better in the world today?

Power Lift

Dear God, I want to come before you with a pure heart. Keep my motives focused on glorifying you and expanding your kingdom. Help me to put you first, not myself.