I Corinthians 4:5

"Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord come, who both will bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts: and then shall every man have praise of God."

This verse stirred much imagination in me this morning. It is so easy to keep pushing back those feelings of bitterness and being motivated by less than love. BUT someday we will stand before God with every motive revealed. Then will our works be judged.

I want to be right before God. How to do that? I think we must constantly be dying to ourselves and checking our motives and actions against what God wants. If God says not to think more highly of ourselves than we ought and yet we treat others with a difference, then I think we need to bring that to God and ask His forgiveness.

I had a religious TV channel on the other day and there was a black preacher speaking about how his son, when he was young, wanted to be a basketball star. He was very excited to show his dad that he could slam dunk. The only problem was that he had gotten the janitor to lower the goal to six feet. The preacher commented that many christians are the same. They bring God's standard down to theirs and then it seems that they can "slam dunk" the christian life, but when we stand before Him, it will be HIS standard and not ours that we are judged by.