“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. (Matthew 6:1)
Why
do you do what you do? I recently did something helpful to someone,
and they didn’t know who did it. So they put a “Thank you” on Facebook. I
wanted to say, “You’re welcome.” I finally just made a vague positive comment. But
here I am writing about it to you. I tell myself it’s just so that I can give
you an example of how hard it can be not to seek human approval, but let’s not
pretend that I’m not basking in the glow of being able to provide a good
example.
As
people, we are wired to seek approval, which includes human approval.
Jesus isn’t saying that human approval is wrong. But He is saying that you “get
what you pay for.” If your actions are focused on getting human approval, and
you get it, we got what we wanted. Why should we be disappointed if we don’t
get what we didn’t seek?
In
the same way, if we practice our righteousness in front of God to be seen by
Him, what does it matter what people think? There are still places
where this is an issue. You don’t speak in tongues? There’s something wrong
with your salvation! You don’t raise your hands in worship? What’s wrong with
you? How can you possibly worship without speaking in tongues or lifting your
hands?
And
if it’s not speaking in tongues or lifting hands in worship within the church, people
may disapprove of what God has called you to in some other way. But the key is
this – if you seek His approval, their disapproval won’t matter as much.
Our focus is the issue in this passage because our focus identifies our true god,
whether other people or God.
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