Giving in Secret

Giving in Secret

As you see in the title I want to cover a thing that I heard from Jesus, "giving in secret"; I want to try my best to explain what it means and how it changes the way we look at people. What I mean by "giving", is any charitable deed; or in other words an act of love. Giving money to a homeless person on the street, helping someone change a tire; basically anything you can boast about just to say "I did this so I'm a good person".

This idea comes from Matthew 6:1-4 "Take heed that ye do not do your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, they have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: that thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly."

What does this mean?

I think Jesus, like always; is addressing our pride. He wants to get it in our heads that we need to do good deeds for God and his glory, not for getting the praise of people. As soon as we boast about the good things we've done it doesn't become about the person we've helped anymore, it becomes all about our self image and it takes everyone's focus off how great God is for giving his love to share around with people. These verses mean that we need to be careful when it comes to doing good deeds, because it can be so easy to loose sight of true love and to boast about what we've done.

"Look at me!"

I know for a fact that when someone tells another about a good deed they've done, it makes the other look at them like they're higher because they've done something good. Imagine if no one had room to boast because no one told each other about their good deeds, people would be only focused on doing good instead of "one upping" the other. That's the ultimate reason of why we're alive, to love; not to boast about the good things we've done because EVERYONE should be doing good. Unfortunately that's not how this world works, everyone is focused on how people see them; people leave no room for true love. Since everyone is focused on boasting we see people as "spiritual" but really they're just proud! Trying to get YOU to look at what they have done, they don't do the things they do for love; they do it for respect.

Why do you do good deeds?