What is desired in a man is kindness, and a poor man is better than a liar. (Proverbs 19:22, NKJV)
God looks behind our actions, and sees our motives and intentions. God expects us to have both clean hands and pure hearts prompting what our hands find to do (Jas. 4:8). What desire of the heart are you accomplishing by your actions? Here, Solomon notes that kindness is measured and meted out by what is in the heart. A poor man who shows kindness from an empathetic heart (though he possesses little), is of greater value than the rich man who says kind things, but does little (1 Jno. 3:17-18; Jas. 2:15-16). When we say, yet fail to do, we show ourselves to be liars. Solomon acknowledges this, in order to urge us to be sure that our kind acts toward others are a genuine reflection of our heart, and not an exercise in vanity and self-promotion. If they are, then we have our reward (Matt. 6:1-4).
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