Altruistic Motives is A No-Go

I can tell you now, the motives behind my actions are usually not the right motives I should have. Anyone ever lie to themselves about his or her motives to feel better about the action taken? I do, and I must confess that I do it quite often. "Nah, I'm not doing this in order to look really good and impress people...I'm helping people, of course! However, it would make me look like a really spiritual christian...that's a plus. Oh wait, HELP OTHERS!" Smack me in the face! That example is usually how my brain reasons my motives in order to make me feel better about myself and my actions.


Even when motives are truly to help people (a good thing), motives should first, glorify and serve the Lord. For some reason, I find it hard to grasp doing things for Him first, depending on what it is that I am doing. I don't know if the difficulty is caused by the fact that I am unable to physically see God, but I can see people, or something else (or both). 


There is also a tendency to do things to simply feel good. When I sing, I just want that awesome, chilling effect I get when I feel the presence of the Holy Spirit. When I sing, I should sing to praise the Lord, not to simply feel awesome.


Here is the order I feel motives should be:
1) Serve and glorify the Lord
2) Serve others
3) For ourselves


Here is the order my motives often lie:
1) For myself
2) Serve others
3) Serve and glorify the Lord
Hmm...according to my calculations, those do not match up...at all. FAIL.
Thankfully, because the Lord wants my motives to be pure, I can ask for pure motives and know that I will receive them. See Luke 11:9. Also, see 1 John 5:14.


1 Corinthians 10:31
"So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God."


Philippians 4:8
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."