For the All the Right Reasons

Thursday - February 25th

Devotionals from the Book of James

Scripture to Read Today: James 4:1-10

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When you ask, you do not receive,

because you ask with wrong motives,

that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.

James 4:3

Jayden Sutton, a high school senior from Cobb County, GA, walked a total of seven miles from his school to his restaurant job and then home each day. His mom had recently been laid off from work and had also totaled her car. She had no way to help her son, and he wanted to help her.

"I knew if I had to walk to work every day to get a car, that's what I was going to do," Sutton told a local television station. "If I had to walk home, then that's what I was going to do."

Lavonda Wright saw Sutton heading down a road to work one day in December. "He was walking really fast down the road and my son stopped me and said, 'I think that's Jayden,'" Wright told the station. Wright drove Sutton, a classmate of her son's, to work that day. She decided to make a difference and help the teenager. Wright said the high school senior's desire to have a car was for all the right reasons.

Through a GoFundMe page Wright established and the help of a local Honda dealership, she was able to get a new car for Sutton. In January, Wright shared a picture of herself and the teen standing in front of the vehicle on Facebook. "Look at Jayden's amazing smile receiving his new car and keys!" she wrote in the post. She declared the new car an "answer to our prayers!"

James 4:3 tells us that God does not answer when we pray and ask Him for things in prayer with wrong motives. When we pray for all the right reasons, God answers our prayers. He meets our needs. When our motivation can be reduced purely to satisfy our own pleasures, God does not promise He will fulfill such a request.

Too often, we come to God in prayer with selfish, greedy hearts. We approach Him for all the wrong reasons. He is God. He knows the motivation of our hearts. Let's not fool ourselves.

Jayden Sutton's desire for a car came from a place of care for his mother and a high work ethic. Lavonda Wright saw herself and those who joined her at the GoFundMe page as an answer to prayer for Jayden. What each of them did was done for all the right reasons!

What motivates you when you pray? Do you pray for all the right reasons?

God honors the prayers of those who pray with pure motives!