Matthew 6:1 “Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
Motive is one of the most difficult things to know about a person’s actions. We even cloud our own motives at times. We have the ability to justify almost anything we want to do, if we really want to do it. And some can do almost anything and feel good about themselves and what they have done.
So if we can do this to ourselves, it becomes even more difficult to discern another person’s motives. But motive can make the identical actions of two people be very different. For one, they can be a good action, while for the other they can be a not so good action. Yikes! This gets difficult, doesn’t it?
Jesus has a way of getting right to the heart of a matter. He doesn’t pull punches. He doesn’t beat around the bush. So what does He tell us here?
The first thing is that we should be doing things identified as righteous acts. These are outlined in the Old Testament. They primarily are things that we do to help our fellow human beings, like helping the orphans and widows. But it doesn’t stop there.
We are, as followers of Jesus, to be a witness in this world to the grace and mercy of Christ by the way that we treat each other. We should be exhibiting the Fruit of the Spirit continually. These are the qualities and actions that the audience of Jesus’ day would have understood. And they are good things.
But our motive for doing them must be pure. We need to do these things so as to honor the LORD. He is our only legitimate audience. Jesus says that if we do them for other people to see, then they become empty actions, unworthy of the God we serve. If our motive is wrong, then our actions become wrong as well. They may be good actions, but they don’t reflect well on our Father in heaven.
The remainder of the chapter gives us examples of these actions that the LORD considered acts of righteousness. Giving to the needy, praying, and fasting. These are almost universally recognized as things that God’s people do as a matter of course. They become the fabric of life for those who follow Him.
So it is important to get the motive correct. The focus must always be on Him, and not on our efforts. If we come out the winner, we lose. The LORD is the One to whom all honor and glory, praise and thanksgiving belong.
May the LORD help us purify our motives so that He gets the glory for what He does through us.
The Arnold Journey 