Asking - With Motive

Now when He had departed from there, He went into their synagogue. And behold, there was a man who had a withered hand. And they asked Him, saying, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”—that they might accuse Him. Matthew 12:9-10

The account of Matthew clearly ascribes a motive to a question in this scripture passage. In most cases, we would ask a question with the motive of wanting to learn something. Here these Pharisees had already decided the answer for themselves, and used the question to set a trap for Jesus. An easy target from this passage would be to come down on those Pharisees, but Jesus already took care of that and they are long gone anyway. Instead, let us look at our own asking and see if any underhanded motives are present in our prayers. The Pharisees make a good example of what not to do. So as we get with God in private prayer, we want to make sure we didn't join their band by accident or worse, intent.

As Jesus showed us, "Not My will, but Thy will be done."

Bucky