"For I remember the word of God which saith by their works ye shall know them; for if their works be good, then they are good also.
For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing.
For behold, it is not counted unto him for righteousness.
For behold, if a man being evil giveth a gift, he doeth it grudgingly; wherefore it is counted unto him the same as if he had retained the gift; wherefore he is counted evil before God."
Moroni 7:5-8
This is a good reminder that our intentions and internal desires count just as much as our actions. Often we focus on actions or looking good, fulfilling the letter of the law, but as we're told here, good actions don't matter unless we also have good hearts.
That said, I don't think that we need to despair if our hearts aren't pure yet... we still have time to work on that, and God wants us to start where we are, with action or desire or whatever. We just can't stop there. It isn't enough to play the part, but it is okay to play the part while we are learning to *become* the part. :)
Today, let's go forward remembering that actions *and* desires matter, and work on becoming good internally and externally. Instead of just going through the motions, let's really examine where we are inside and start practicing things that we really believe in just as much as we do good things... working from both ends in trying to become truly good.
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