Check Daily the Dipstick of Your Heart

Man sees your actions, but God sees your motives.

Almost everyone knows that they need to periodically check (or have someone check) the oil in their car's engine. If the oil level runs out, gets too low, or gets too dirty there will likely be damage to the car's engine. On most cars there is a long metal rod that runs down into the lower part of the engine with markings that indicate the current oil level. You dip it in and pull it out to read the level markings. You can also visually inspect the oil on the dipstick to see if it is really dirty or not. This is a basic part of good maintenance to keep your car running well.

To God, our "heart attitudes" matter more than our results. "Heart attitude" is an ancient figurative concept and not literally the physical human heart. It really implies the motives and intentions within a person's mind (brain) that drives their thinking, opinions and mental attitudes, which in turn motivates their decisions and actions.

This post encourages you to self-examine your beliefs and motives daily, if not multiple times a day to determine what drives you. (your motives). Are you motivated by fear or faith? Do you serve others gladly or do you expect others to serve you? Are you self-absorbed or do you focus more on the needs and well-being of others? Are you full of love for others or do you hate, judge and/or criticize others? Are you a positive or negative person? Are you selfish or generous with your resources? Does your life honor God in all you do, or does your life rarely or never honor God? Do you do what Jesus would do (WWJD) or not? Do you take credit or give God the credit when good things happen. Are you full of pride or humility? Are you a positive or negative person? Well, these comparisons of polar opposites could go on for a very long time, but I hope you get the picture.

Take and make the time to look critically at your own motives (heart attitudes) every day. The questions posed above would be a good starting point for the self-examination of the "dipstick" of the heart. If your "dipstick" isn't where it needs to be and doesn't measure up, ask the Holy Spirit to bring some fresh spiritual oil into your life. He will do that if you ask and believe. Swap your dirty oil for some clean fresh spiritual oil from God. Let God and Jesus lubricate your heart, mind, your hurts and pains with goodness and blessings as promised for believers in God's Word, the Bible. They are available for the asking and believing. Ask, seek, and knock. Repeat, repeat and repeat.

In my long career in HR, I interviewed many hundreds of people for jobs. If the job needed someone who was service-oriented and focused on the needs of others (like the customers), I would ask this interview question: "What are the first three things you would do if you won a $10 MM lottery?" (Now, ask yourself that same question and be honest.) If two or more of the candidate's first three actions were focused on themself, then I would determine they did not have the right "heart attitude" to be a good fit for the job. Honestly, how did you answer that question? Your response would tend to reveal something about your heart attitude. Do you focus on self versus focus on others?

Practice regular preventative maintenance (PM) and check the dipstick of your "heart." Remember, you can fool men, but you can't fool God! God will bless those with a righteous heart.

Thank you for taking your time to read this post. I value your opinions, comments and rating of this material in the Comments Box directly below some of my other recent posts. I hope you will share this post if you found it of value. My goal is "to help people learn how to live a truly blessed life." My posts fall into four categories: 1) Spiritual Laws, 2) Christian Principles, 3) Servant Leadership, and 4) Life Lessons. Thanks again for reading and I pray many blessings for you!