15-17 It’s true that some here preach Christ because with me out of the way, they think they’ll step right into the spotlight. But the others do it with the best heart in the world. One group is motivated by pure love, knowing that I am here defending the Message, wanting to help. The others, now that I’m out of the picture, are merely greedy, hoping to get something out of it for themselves. Their motives are bad. They see me as their competition, and so the worse it goes for me, the better—they think—for them. (Philippians 1:15-17 – The Message)
Motive is something from the inside, which people may not have noticed. People can take the same action, but with very different motives. A person may participate in food drive because he/she sees how people in poverty suffer from malnutrition. Another person may also participate in food drive because all his/her friends participate and he/she wants to hang out with them. The result of both situations is the same and indeed positive, which is the belly of the poor is filled. To the poor, would it matter if someone helps him/her because of love and care or if someone helps him/her because of selfish reasons? If I were the poor, I probably would not care that much. What I care the most is whether or not I have food to eat. So, why would we have to care about motive? The significance of knowing our own motive is really for the benefit of ourselves and not for the benefit of those being affected by our actions. If we want to grow, we need to know our true self and our motive reflects who we really are. We can be easily deceived by our own actions. But it would be harder for us to deceive ourselves when we look closely to our motives.
