Rewarded

DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL OF MATTHEW

REWARDED

Matt 6:1-4

6:1 "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.

NIV

This cannot be any clearly than it is. What mystery is in this truth? None. Simply be very careful not to make a public display of our righteousness. But this is not just about a public display of our acts of or showing our righteousness. Yet first we should define just what would be our acts of righteousness. This might be seen as our service to the Lord, what we do in church. But that does not fit all of the context of his teaching. In the context this might be seen as being a show off in our being righteous before others, or thinking more highly of ourselves then we should. Man has a tendency to place titles upon themselves to endeavor to indicate either their position in society or their intellectual prowess. Yet in the context of God, we are all the same, sinners saved by grace. How then could we ever do any acts of righteousness before men, if we have no righteousness except that of Christ?  The Greek gives us a clue as to what exactly this act of righteousness is. Be careful not to display your being made holy, your equity of character, or your justification before men. This would imply that we do not make a big deal about the things we do or the things we do not do, in an effort to show our Christianity. Some Christians make a very big deal about the fact they do not drink or smoke or stepped foot in a movie theater, or danced, or whatever which is supposed to prove how holy and righteous they are. Jesus said don’t do that for if you do, then you have already received your reward. But this also speaks to another point within the whole of the context about our giving. The Greek word for act of righteousness has also been translated as “alms” and in the rest of this teaching Jesus speaks about our giving to the poor or needy. We should first consider does this include our tithe and offers. If the church is the agent of our suppling to the needy of the world, then it would make perfect senses to include those tithes and offerings in the giving to the needy. It may be up to the church board, or elders or whoever decides how to spend the resources of the church other than on salaries and building maintenance. But the fact remains unless we personally are giving of our money or resources to those in need, then all we give at church would be spoken of here. This would mean that no one in the church should be aware of what we give either as a tithe or an offering.  We should not let our right hand know what our left hand is doing. This would include those who count the money received in the collection of tithes and offerings. The writing of a check gives such information, or the writing of our name on the envelope containing cash. They then make a record of such giving and someone keeps track of it so we can receive a letter of confirmation as to our yearly total for tax purposes. We certainly do our sinning in private, so why would we not do our acts of righteousness in private? If we do them in public, so to speak, could this be already receiving our reward? Certainly we would not stand on the street corner and give away money to the needy, with some television station broadcasting our acts of righteousness. Yet that is exactly what some churches have done, announcing all their ministries before important visitors, or even before the community. Surely they have already received their reward. What about those missionaries who have to itinerate to raise support? Somehow they feel like they need to show how much they are doing for some indigenous people in order to give us a reason to support them.  They might even thank the church for all their support which makes us feel good about giving, but then because a record of our giving has been kept we have already received our reward in their praise for our faithful support. It is a very slippery slope we can travel in this giving of our resources. Perhaps it would be best to simply give cash without any name attached to it. Although it is true the church needs to keep accurate records because of government regulations, the fact still remains we should not let anyone know what we as people give to any cause for the needy. This whole money thing associated with church and missions may have turned into a big business instead of being what Jesus intended. So whether we act as if we are holy before others or we give so someone else knows about it, Jesus says no, not to do it, because in doing so we have already received our reward. So then what awaits us in the next life? What if the eternal life is the reward? That would put an entirely different spin on things. Whatever the reward is, it would be best to receive it from God rather than from men.