heart motivations and Spirit elevations.

"everything that does not come from faith is sin."
-romans 14.23-

i find this principal that our God set into motion to be such kindness. as best i can tell, it seems to me that what He was trying to guard us against in this command was the treachery of double-mindedness.

i truly believe that second-guessing [and third and fourth and fifth-guessing...] ourselves leaves some sort of open door for the enemy to introduce all sorts and manners of confusion, chaos and lack of peace in our lives...and it really is His "peace which guards our hearts and minds in Christ"

this King we love and co-labor with & are getting to know better daily is truly obsessed with looking at the... actions of our hearts?

...the failings of our hearts?

no.

He seems rather obsessed with gazing at the motives of our hearts.

i really believe that the Bible is chock-full of Truths and examples set by fellow humans in centuries gone by that seem to declare this God-reality--

that He would prefer a 'failed' outcome of a heart acting in faith to the best of its ability to elevate the guidance of the Spirit

instead of

a 'successful' outcome of a heart acting in doubt, fear, self-preservation, etc.

a heart not acting in faith to the best of its ability, but instead attempting to avoid pain, rejection, failure, etc; or the heart elevating human reasoning above what it knows the Spirit to be saying is not a success in God's eyes.
a heart leaning on it's own strength or wisdom...attempting to safeguard itself and making a half-hearted, second-guessing decisions lacking that deep "transcending understanding" peace that has one Source & one Source alone = not good.

the motives.

it's all about the motives.