Not Before Men

 DEVOTION

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW

NOT BEFORE MEN

Matt 6:1

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.

NIV

We are going to see some specific acts as Jesus expands on this initial statement, but it would be good to simply take these words of his and consider what they look like other than the following examples Jesus gives. Of course, maybe he meant this only to apply to the three specific areas of life, giving, praying, and fasting. However, those are not the only acts of righteousness that we can do before men, unless all other acts, except these three, are not righteous. Surely all the “Good deeds” must be considered as acts of righteousness, don’t they?  How can we do “Good deeds” without men seeing them? Even if we limit the acts of righteousness to giving, praying, and fasting, it seems that at least two of the three are done in the presence of men. In fact, we generally keep a record of our giving so we can have our reward at tax season. We also make it a habit to pray before men, some of which pray eloquently with, words, which seem a little showy, sort of. But we will get more in-depth with those three areas as we deal with each one. For now, let us be content to simply consider that the Christian life is not to be a flashy one, showing off our spirituality, or rattling off all the good things we are doing for the Lord. We remember one of the churches we were members of that whenever a local leader of the community attended some function, like a 9/11 memorial service, the pastor would make sure to give a list of all the “Good Deeds” the church does in the community. It was boastful and arrogant and wrong, which is one of the reasons we left that church. There is no good reason to announce all the good things we are doing, for that would be doing our acts of righteousness before men. Why do we feel that we have to give an account of our deeds? Perhaps those who are paid ministers feel the need to justify their pay, by giving an account of all they do in the name of the Lord. Still, it would seem that it is a form of boasting and needs to be omitted. This even extends to all of us, for anything we do that is being done in service to the Lord. We will get into more detail about those three later, but we cannot escape the fact this applies to so many areas of the Christian life. There are some things, some “Good deeds” or acts of righteousness that we cannot hide from men. There are some which have to be done in the open, so to speak, but then we need to see the difference between humility and boastfulness and remember we are not to think more highly of ourselves than we should. So then, if we have to serve the Lord before men, let us serve with humility, kindness, gentleness, goodness, and with grace and love.