6 “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.
2 “So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.
Once again Jesus is telling us that it is not so much the act, but the motive behind the act, that is important. Two people can do the exact same thing but with far different motives, and as a result, with far different rewards. If our motive is one of self righteousness, one of wanting recognition for doing the right thing, one of simply wanting to act or appear righteous - then God will not reward that act, no matter how good the act itself was. The only reward we will receive is the one we were wanting - human recognition. Our Christian life is not supposed to be just a show. It is not some act performed in front of an audience.
But when the act is done with the right motive - out of love, out of our desiring to help the needy, out of pursuing holiness, out of a desire to be more like Jesus, and above all when it becomes so much a part of our character that it is almost simply a reflex reaction - then God will bless us.
I loved MacArthur's description of the cycle of blessing and giving....
In other words, as you give God blesses. And when God blesses you out of your giving, out of His blessing you give again. You see? I give. God blesses. Out of the blessing, I give again. And the cycle of blessing goes like that.
When we give, we step into the cycle of blessing.
The one area where giving in secret, or doing the right thing without wanting others to notice, does not apply is parenting. We need to teach our children to give, to do the right thing, and we need to teach them about the right motive for doing so - but if they never witness us doing it they likely won't emulate it. Our walk needs to match our talk. Our children need to see us doing what we preach to them. But then, the motive for telling them isn't for their praise, it is for teaching and training - so the motive is still a good one.
Tomorrow's scripture focus: Matthew 6:5-15
1 comment:
One of the things I've been thinking a lot about lately is being genuine. I don't want to just present my best when people are looking and slack off when no one is around. Or, alternatively, behave in one way around these people and in another way around others. I know I struggled a lot with that as a teenager - trying to be whoever I thought the people around me wanted me to be. I think as I've matured in my 20s and 30s I've become much more comfortable with who I am and I struggle much less with that, but there are still issues I have (as I'm sure most of us do) that I try to pretend I don't because I don't want the people around me to know about them. Which is kind of the other side of the coin from what is being talked about in today's verses, about doing good things in view of people so they will praise us.
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