Beware of practicing your piety before others.
Matthew 6:1-21
Lent is a time for reflection. Today, as we begin the season,Matthew encourages us to examine our faith and our motives.
This passage is from the Sermon on the Mount, in which Christ delineates standards for us to live by. Of course because we are human, none of us will ever meet this ideal, no matter how hard we try. But we are assured that, if we truly believe in Him, aspects of the kingdom, something of each of the Beatitudes, will be present within us—spiritual poverty, humility, a spiritual thirst, mercy, peace. Equally important will be evidence of the surpassing righteousness of Christ. As our faith grows we will begin to practice righteousness, and anger, impure thoughts, insincerity, retaliation and other human failings will progressively disappear from our lives. When we are filled with the Holy Spirit and with his Word, including the teachings of the Sermon on the Mount, we will practice righteousness.
However, this is where the danger lies. Once we begin to fulfill the righteousness of God, and live a life full of good deeds, it is very easy to begin to lose our focus and to perform our acts of righteousness before men, in order to be seen by them. Matthew cautions us that if we seek praise and adulation from our peers for being pious, then this is the only reward we will receive, missing out on God's much more important reward.
Tricia Hurlbutt
