'Motives' in the Bible
Therefore form no premature judgements, but wait until the Lord returns. He will both bring to light the secrets of darkness and will openly disclose the motives that have been in people's hearts; and then the praise which each man deserves will come to him from God.
If from merely human motives I have fought with wild beasts in Ephesus, what profit is it to me? If the dead do not rise, let us eat and drink, for tomorrow we are to die.
Let all that you do be done from motives of love.
For the reason for our boasting is this--the testimony of our own conscience that it was in holiness and with pure motives before God, and in reliance not on worldly wisdom but on the gracious help of God, that we have conducted ourselves in the world, and above all in our relations with you.
We are; for, unlike most teachers, we are not fraudulent hucksters of God's Message; but with transparent motives, as commissioned by God, in God's presence and in communion with Christ, so we speak.
Therefore, because we realize how greatly the Lord is to be feared, we are endeavouring to win men over, and God recognizes what our motives are, and I hope that you, in your hearts, recognize them too.
These men pay court to you, but not with honourable motives. They want to exclude you, so that you may pay court to them.
while the others proclaim Him from motives of rivalry, and insincerely, supposing that by this they are embittering my imprisonment.
For our preaching was not grounded on a delusion, nor prompted by mingled motives, nor was there fraud in it.
But as God tested and approved us before entrusting us with His Good News, so in what we say we are seeking not to please men but to please God, who tests and approves our motives.