Latest / Beliefs, Ballots, And BullDawgs / Monday 4/27/26
Transcript
- Greg: Hey, what's up? Good morning, guys. And welcome to the latest episode of beliefs, ballots and bets. It is Monday, April 27, 2026. You know, forgive me, I'm coming over a little sinus congestion issue. So my voice may not be quite what it's used to. But I'm glad you're here today. So sure, we're gonna talk about some brief and faithful steps for some wiser choices. The focus line for today is going to be about motive and mercy and moving with integrity. The scripture of the day is Proverbs chapter 16 verses 2 and 3 and I don't know about you guys, but anytime the daily devotional comes from the book of Proverbs, I'm pretty confident I'm going to get a good word because King Solomon was as we know the wisest man to ever live in God's word. So chapter 16 verses 2 and 3, all a person's ways seem pure to them, but motives are weighed by the Lord. Commit to the Lord in whatever you do and he will establish your plans. Again, this is pretty straightforward. It's something I think we all are very well aware of. It is very easy for all of us and we are all very supremely talented when it comes to justifying our own actions. Sometimes we're even good enough to lie to ourselves about what our intentions are, but as the scripture says, God weighs the spirit. in the Hebrew word, the word weighs is literally it's on a scale of justice. So it's either even or it's in uneven, it's either just or unjust. And it's true that you can fool yourself sometimes about what your motives and what your intentions are for some of the things you do, but we can't fool God. And I think it was King David who cried out to the Lord, know, search my heart and know my intentions. And I think that's something we should all work to do. God is going to assess the motives of your heart and that is going to be crucial in the outcome of whatever it is you're pursuing. And then the second part of the verse where it says, you know, commit your work to the Lord. You know, I think that's again self-explanatory. Submit your intentions to the Lord. Tell the Lord what you plan on doing and why you plan on doing it. And as the Bible tells us, if He is for us, who can be against us? If God is behind what you're doing because your intentions are pure and good, whatever it is will be successful in some way, shape, or form. As we get into some of the practical applications, is just some little things I try to hold myself to or some little tips I like to throw out that may help somebody along the way. One of these is find yourself and you'll find that almost all of these are requiring one simple act that most of us fail to do all day every day. And let's take a break, take a breath, take a minute before responding or reacting to something. So one of these is to come up with like a brief moment of reflection before you make a choice and truly ask yourself, what is the motive behind this? Why am I doing this? Is this a self-serving motive? And it's okay, some things are self-serving, but if it is self-serving, can you also find another way to make it less self-serving? Can you make it an act of service instead of self-service? ⁓ So go to God in any these and ask God to search your heart and know your true intentions. And that way if you're lying to yourself, he'll call you out and convict you on it and you'll start to figure some things out. The other thing we can do is to ask, know, find somebody really close to you and find this to be your, what I call your motive witness. Somebody that is freely able and willing to call you out when they question your motives. Let's not be real. can you can do bad things for good reasons or we can do good things for bad reasons. But at the end of the day, those reasons do matter. And God is judging you based on what's what's in the content of your heart and what those motives are. So find somebody to to be a witness to your motive, somebody that can sit down and address and ask you the question of go, hey, based on this choice or this action, what were your motives? Why did you do this this way? And again, a lot of this comes with with honesty and integrity. And if If you can't be honest with yourself, ultimately I think that is at the root of a lot of our issues in society right now, is people have gotten not only comfortable lying to each other and putting up a false facade, but I don't think most people are even able to look themselves in the mirror and be honest with themselves. So let's work on going to God daily and ask God to convict your heart and make sure that your motives are pure. And then take it a step beyond that. Find one of your biblical godly friends and ask them to say, watch me. And if my motives come into question, let's talk about that. And then let's try to figure out, based on the motives that are driving those actions, you can start to kind of create a roadmap for what motives lead you to success. What actions led by what motives lead you to the outcomes that you're ultimately trying to accomplish. So those are some key points that I think we can take away and apply to the verse in our day-to-day world. And again, most of it all just comes with some simple things, which is. A, take a moment to reflect. It's okay to take a pause, take a breath, gather yourself, figure out what's really going on inside of you before you respond to something. And then the second one is being honest with yourself. And this is the hardest thing out there. Going to God every day and asking God to help you with this is about the only way any of us have any chance of being successful with this. You have to allow Him in your heart and you have to allow Him to ultimately be the one who weighs your morals and your decisions and your motives behind anything. All right, let's get into our three plays of the day today. We got two baseball plays and a basketball play. Sounds like a broken record. I think we finished up Friday. We had a one and two day Friday. So we were five and one in the last six. So that makes a six and three on our last nine plays. I think that leaves us with a little profit last week. So nothing huge, but nothing bad. And we'll take, we'll take small change, collecting and adding up over time. Three plays for the day. We're going with the Boston Red Sox at the Toronto Blue Jays over seven runs. We're going with the Miami Marlins at the LA Dodgers over eight and a half runs. And then we're going with the basketball player. We're going Minnesota Timberwolves plus 11 and a half at Denver. Just seems like too many points in a playoff game. Hopefully, hopefully Minnesota can at least limit Denver's offensive opportunities a little bit, keep the score low and keep it within 11 and a half. Hopefully they got a fight for all they can get in the series. So as we, as we wrap up guys, let's, let's remember the, the, ultimate summary of today's message is that God is the only one who can purely and truly weigh our motives because at the end of the day, he's probably the only one that truly knows our motives. He's the only one capable of getting in our hearts and searching at the core and knowing who we are at the purest form of us. So do your motive checks, like ask yourself those questions. Say, what's really driving me to do this right now? and use some external witnesses. Ask folks to help you pay attention to that because as you start to understand your motives and as you start to get a little cleaner idea of what truly motivates you, it's easier to start dialing in the ones that are purely good and truly acts of service and things that will benefit the world around you. And those are the acts that God's looking for us to do. So as always, guys, get in your Bibles, say your prayers, love each other, and tell the truth. I'm Greg Miller and I appreciate you listening. God bless.