19 Bible Verses about motives

Do everything with love.

Do not form any premature judgments, therefore, but wait until the Lord comes back. For he will light up the darkness that now hides things and show what the motives in people's minds are, and then everyone will get from God the praise he deserves.

But what difference does it make? All that matters is that, in one way or another, from false motives or honest ones, Christ is being made known; I am glad of that. Yes, and I expect to be glad,

You ask and fail to get them because you ask with wrong motives, to spend them on your pleasures.

God has thought us fit to be intrusted with the good news, and so we tell it, making no effort to please men, but to please God, who tests our hearts.

For I am no peddler of God's message, like most men, but like a man of sincerity, commissioned by God and in his presence, in union with Christ I utter his message.

Some of them, it is true, are actually preaching the Christ from jealousy and partisanship, but there are others who are doing it out of good-will.

the quality of everyone's work will appear, for the Day will show it. For the Day will break in fire, and the fire will test the quality of everyone's work.

I beg you not to make me take as bold an attitude when I come, as I count on taking toward some people who suspect me of acting from worldly motives.

For our appeal does not rest on a delusion, nor spring from any impure motive; there is no fraud about it.

But the others are preaching the Christ not sincerely but for their own ends, imagining that they are making my imprisonment harder to bear.

It is with this knowledge of what the fear of the Lord means that I appeal to men. My true character is perfectly plain to God, and I hope to your consciences too.

have you not wavered and shown that your judgments are guided by base motives?

For what human being can understand a man's thoughts except the man's own spirit within him? Just so no one understands the thoughts of God but the spirit of God.

These men are making much of you, but not with honorable intentions. They want to shut you out, so that you will have to make much of them.

We never used flattery, as you know, or found pretexts for making money, as God is our witness.

For though I do live an earthly life, I am not carrying on an earthly war,