Tuesday

Related Verses
Matt. 6:1, 3-4, 5-15
1 But take care not to do your righteousness before men in order to be gazed at by them; otherwise, you have no reward with your Father who is in the heavens.
3 But you, when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing,
4 So that your alms may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
5 And when you pray, you shall not be like the hypocrites, because they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners, so that they may be seen by men. Truly I say to you, They have their reward in full.
6 But you, when you pray, enter into your private room, and shut your door and pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will repay you.
7 And in praying do not babble empty words as the Gentiles do; for they suppose that in their multiplicity of words they will be heard.
8 Therefore do not be like them, for your Father knows the things that you have need of before you ask Him.
9 You then pray in this way: Our Father who is in the heavens, Your name be sanctified;
10 Your kingdom come; Your will be done, as in heaven, so also on earth.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And do not bring us into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.
14 For if you forgive men their offenses, your heavenly Father will forgive you also;
15 But if you do not forgive men their offenses, neither will your Father forgive your offenses.

Related Reading
Righteousness [in Matthew 6:1] denotes righteous deeds, such as giving alms (vv. 2-4), praying (vv. 5-15), and fasting (vv. 16-18). No doubt these verses speak about the righteous deeds of the kingdom people. Actually, however, they expose the self and the flesh…Of course, the words self and flesh are not used in these verses. Nevertheless,…in these eighteen verses the Lord used three illustrations—the giving of alms, praying, and fasting—to reveal how we are filled with the self and the flesh.

Man’s flesh, seeking to glorify itself, always wants to do good deeds before men in order to gain men’s praise. But the kingdom people, who live in an emptied and humbled spirit and walk in a pure and single heart under the heavenly ruling of the kingdom, are not allowed to do anything in the flesh to gain the praise of men but must do all things in the spirit to please their heavenly Father. (Life-study of Matthew, pp. 241-242)

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To the kingdom people God is not only their God but also their Father…They have not only the created, natural human life but also the uncreated, spiritual divine life. Hence, the new law of the kingdom, decreed by the King on the mountain, is given to them with the intention that they should keep it not by their fallen human life but by the Father’s eternal, divine life, not to gain man’s glory but to receive the Father’s reward.

[In Matthew 6:4, 6, 18] the Lord used the word secret…We must do our righteous deeds in secret, for our Father is in secret. In verse 4 the Lord said that our Father sees in secret. The kingdom people, as children of the heavenly Father, must live in the presence of the Father and care for the Father’s presence…The heavenly Father’s seeing in secret must be an incentive to doing their righteous deeds in secret. In this verse the Lord also said that the Father will repay us. This may occur in this age (2 Cor. 9:10-11) or as a reward in the coming age (Luke 14:14).

The effect of doing our righteous deeds in secret is that the self and the flesh are killed. If people in society today are not allowed to make a show of their good deeds, they will not do them…For us as kingdom people, a basic principle concerning righteous deeds is never to make a show of ourselves. As much as possible, hide yourself, keep yourself covered, and do things in secret. We should be so hidden that, as the Lord Jesus said, our left hand does not know what our right hand is doing (Matt. 6:3).

Although the Lord spoke about the matter of reward (vv. 1, 5), the important thing here is not the reward but the growth in life. The saints who grow openly do not grow in a healthy way. We all need some secret growth in life, some secret experiences of Christ. We need to pray to the Lord, worship the Lord, contact the Lord, and fellowship with the Lord in a secret way. Perhaps not even the one closest to us will know or understand what we are doing. We need these secret experiences of the Lord because such experiences kill our self and our flesh. Although anger and lust are ugly, the thing that most frustrates us from growing in life is the self. The self is most visible in the fact that it enjoys doing things in a public way, in the presence of man. The self likes to do righteous deeds before man. We all must admit that, without exception, we have such a self. Those who always want to do things in such a way as to make a public show are full of self, full of the flesh. The self loves to be glorified, and the flesh loves to be gazed upon…Whenever we come to this portion of the Word, we must realize that it exposes our self and our flesh. (Life-study of Matthew, pp. 242-244)

Further Reading: Life-study of Matthew, msg. 21