READING:
One-year plan: Proverbs 16-18, 2 Corinthians 9-10
Two-year plan: 2 Samuel 17:15-18:33, John 1:1-18
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The writer of Proverbs speaks a general truth that all of us need to remember: “All a person’s ways seem right to him, but the Lord weighs motives” (Prov 16:2). It’s so easy to convince ourselves that our actions are right and pure; after all, none of us would want to admit that we sometimes don’t read our own heart very well. Here’s the way Matthew Henry describes this issue: “We are all apt to be partial in judging of ourselves: All the ways of a man, all his designs, all his doings, are clean in his own eyes, and he sees nothing amiss in them, nothing for which to condemn himself . . . .”* We see in our actions good rather than bad, right rather than wrong, pure rather than impure.
God, on the other hand, reads our motives. He knows our heart. He sees self-dependence, ego, and faulty justifications when we don’t see them. He recognizes when our own assessment of self is simply wrong. Consequently, we are wise to continually ask the Lord to help us see ourselves as we truly are.
PERSONAL REFLECTION: Do you ever justify your actions without considering motive?
DAILY PRAYER: “Father, help me to read my heart as You do.”
TOMORROW’S READINGS:
One-year plan: Proverbs 19:1-22:16, 2 Corinthians 11
Two-year plan: 2 Samuel 19, John 1:19-28
* Henry, M. (1994). Matthew Henry’s commentary on the whole Bible: complete and unabridged in one volume(p. 989). Hendrickson.