Welcome to another Thursday UNFILTERED blog post, the only blog that can’t wait for this slow-moving train wreck called 2020 to end.
I have recently written on three relationship destroyers (of ANY relationship — romantic, friendship, familial, work-related, social media, etc.)
The first is outcome dependence. (This one also applies to people who have lost their marbles because of an election outcome.) The second is offering unsolicited advice. The third is the dark side of being vulnerable.
Today I want to talk about a fourth relationship killer. It’s also a sin that few Christians – including pastors and teachers – ever address.
That sin is trying to judge another person’s motivations and imputing evil intentions to their heart.
This foible is particularly common with self-righteous Christians — the few that still exist on Planet Earth. Yea right.
What does it mean to impute a motive to someone’s heart?
It’s when you observe a person’s action or words, and you ascribe a motivation or intention behind those actions or words.
Example:
“The only reason why you’re telling me this is BECAUSE …
“You didn’t respond to that email BECAUSE …
“You only invited that couple to that event BECAUSE …
“You think too much of yourself BECAUSE …
All of these are judgments of the heart.
They ASSUME what a person is thinking, feeling, and WHY they did or said something.
And that’s where the problem lies.
They are assumptions.
And most of the time, they are dead wrong.
But they also do something else.
They expose the one making the judgment.
I remember speaking at a conference and one of the speakers was powerful in his delivery, but he was also humorous.
A young man in the audience judged the speaker’s heart saying, “He’s so full of pride.”
I asked, “Why would you say such a thing?”
The young man’s answer: “Because he told jokes.”
This accuser didn’t realize it, but he was betraying his own sinfulness.
The young man was full of pride himself and lacked humor. So he was projecting his own melancholic haughtiness onto the speaker.
Therefore, the person who is full of ambition will judge other people as being ambitious. (“The only reason why she volunteered for that position is because she is ambitious.”)
The person who is full of lust will judge other people as being lustful. (“The only reason he struck up a conversation with that waitress is because he lusts after her.”)
The person who is insecure and seeks validation from others will judge others as seeking validation (“The reason why she mentioned her accomplishments is because she needs validation.”)
Paul talked about the sin of judging people’s motivations in a biblical text that few people ever talk about today:
To the pure, all things are pure, but to those who are corrupted and do not believe, nothing is pure. In fact, both their minds and consciences are corrupted.
~ Titus 1:15, NIV
If you’re pure in heart, you tend to view others that way. And thus, you won’t judge their intentions as being evil. Instead you’ll always think the best.
But if your heart is corrupt in some area, you will interpret the actions and words of others as being corrupt.
Paul echoes the same point in another letter where he describes love. He says love “thinks no evil” (1 Cointhians 13:5, NKJV).
In other words, love always thinks the best of others.
Here are the facts:
1) Only Jesus Christ can see into a person’s heart and know their motives. You and I cannot. No matter how smart we think we are.
Jesus says, “I am the one who searches out the thoughts and intentions of every person” (Revelation 2:23, NLT). See also 1 Thessalonians 2:4; 1 Samuel 16:7; Proverbs 16:2; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Jeremiah 17:10.
For this reason, Paul exhorts us to “judge nothing before the appointed time; wait until the Lord comes. He will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart.” 1 Corinthians 4:5, NIV.
2) When a person imputes evil motives to someone else’s heart, they are virtually always projecting what’s in their own hearts onto that person.
Here’s how I put it in Revise Us Again.
“Those who are captured by the same spirit they oppose tend to impute the motives of their own hearts onto those who threaten them.
Christian leaders who have inflated egos or deep insecurities are easily threatened by others. As a result, they will unwittingly read their own heart motives into the hearts of other people.
Psychologists call this “projection.” I can’t face my own shortcomings and defects so I unconsciously project them onto other people. I accuse others of the very same dark things that are lurking deep within my own heart.
I’ve watched some Christian leaders engage in projection when they came into contact with those who were just as (or more) gifted than they were. The root was jealousy. You can call it a “Saul complex,” if you will.
Herein lies a great lesson: Those who judge the motives of others are simply revealing what’s in their own hearts.
In Matthew 7:1–4, Jesus points out that those with defective eyesight are all too willing to perform eye surgery on others.
Yet within this text, the Lord makes this chilling assessment: If you impute an evil motive onto someone else, you’re simply making known what your motives are.
To put it another way, the piece of sawdust we see in our brother’s eye is simply a small chip off the two-by-four that lies within our own. And a piece of wood will always distort our vision.
When people cannot face the reality of what’s in their own hearts, they project it onto others—particularly those who they find threatening to their egos.”
3) While it’s right to judge actions and words, it’s always wrong to judge motives.
Why? Because you cannot see into the heart of another human being. So stop pretending that you can.
So if you want to destroy a relationship, just start imputing bad motives to someone’s heart.
Until next week,
Yours in His unshakable kingdom,
fv
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