Thursday 10 Apr 2014

April 10: Matthew 6:1-4

Key Verse: Matthew 6:4
that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.

Devotion:
God does not require that we show ourselves off; that is taking other people’s eyes off of God and focusing them on you instead. What God does want us to do is to do good things, but to not make a big thing of it. I know it is difficult not to “gently remind” people of the things that you do or to show them that you are doing things, but it does invite self-glory instead.

If you are going to do charitable work, then go ahead and do it, and if people are going to praise you for doing so then great; but don’t advertise it just so that you will get recognition. If God wants you to have the recognition then He will give it to you. In the parable of the prodigal son, where the one son ran away and wasted all his inheritance, the father promoted his son on his return when he least expected it. The son came back in humility and yet the father chose to dress him in fine clothes and gold rings. God, in the same manner, wants to give us recognition for what we do; but let Him be the one to do that!

If we do seek to gain glory for what we do then that is all the glory that we will get because God will not add to that which we have taken from Him. That could be seen as being the same as giving a thief the rest of your belongings after he has been discovered stealing your things; it does not make sense. And yet so many people choose to do exactly that because they have lost sight of God in their lives.

It is a pleasure to see some people succeed in life because they just get on and do things without requiring that people constantly take notice of them; they get the job done and they do it to the best of their ability. Can you imagine how good church life would be if we all did things for God to the best of our ability without shouting about it? I know it is a basic failing of humanity, but we should be trying hard to not go there. Christ willingly became a servant so that He could give us the ultimate gift without shouting about it. He chose to not say anything in his defence when facing the authorities. He could have bragged about what He was about to achieve, but He did not. Follow Christ.

Points to Ponder:
Do you let others know what you are doing?

Do you get on with God’s business?