The Visible vs The Invisible

It is easy to know the motive of something if you’re able to trace your thoughts back to what triggered its start.

Things never start from just actions or words, a thought always precedes it and the result of the action reveals the quality of thoughts that went into it. It is one of the beautiful ways that God has made the human being to work. That our brain and body work in such union.

The bible speaks to us a lot about intents and motives, it emphasises this often because God being Spirit is able to see and know beyond our actions and words, the human being may be limited in that regard, but not God, and so while it is possible to deceive human beings through words and actions, we cannot do same with God.

I’ve often read about the people who tried to build up the Tower of babel in a positive light only, I’ve been motivated and taught about their union and unity and I’ve even always used the words of God in that scripture when I was leading teams or just working with people, God is quoted there saying “If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them“.

It is like God also acknowledged the power and effect of unity and it has always been a lesson in my mind that once a group of people speak the same language (literally and figuratively), progress will be made.

But this morning, I took my eyes off of Gods words and focused on that of the people, I wanted to know why such a positive lesson emerged from their words and actions but God in His divinity decided to stop their plans because of the intentions and motives behind it.

These were the words of the people prior to building the tower; “Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower that reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves; otherwise we will be scattered over the face of the whole earth“

We’re able to see the 3 motives for this decision which are all rooted in one things. The 3 motives were to ;

Build a city for themselves
Reach the heavens
Make a name for themselves

And all 3 motives were rooted in themselves. It was all for them and to their glory, so while their coming together meant unity that God encourages, their intentions and motives reeked of selfishness of which God opposes.

When our motives are based on our-self, for our-self and to the glory of our-self, it is a red flag, God’s work through a person never benefits only that person and I challenge you to actually verify this by looking at God’s walk with men in the bible. If we are created for God’s glory then everything, every single thing that comes from us, must be birthed from that desire to bring God glory. Not glory to ourselves.

We even see from the story of Babel that their intentions and motives were well in contrast to what God wanted for them as a people, they wanted to do those 3 things so that they will not be scattered over the face of the earth, but verse 8 tells us that God went ahead and did exactly that, He scattered them over the face of the earth because His intention for creating them was never to reach heaven by their building, it was to take care of the earth and bring glory to Him in everything they did.

I wrote it up there, but i’ll write it again here so it sinks in well, everything that we do as Christians must glorify God, it is the only way that Jesus showed us, everything Jesus did was to the glory of the Father, never for Himself. I realise it is a high calling, but it is one that we have been thoroughly graced for through God’s Spirit in us.

Let’s bring our motives and intentions to question always to ensure that the glory of the Father is the main goal and aim.