Have you ever had a close brush with death? There is nothing like it to make a person think about eternity. In my early life as a commercial fisherman off the East Coast of England, I had many close calls where death came knocking on my door. There's nothing like having an unexploded German magnetic mine twelve-foot-long lying on the deck to prompt such thoughts! That was when I first began to think about what would happen to me when I died. Is there life after death? God was gracious to me in revealing the reason for the death of Christ. When I became a Christian, I totally and unreservedly gave my life into His hands and found that my goals in life changed. My vision of my future changed. After my conversion, the lure of money, things, and success as a commercial fisherman had no appeal to me. What’s the point of working six days a week, fifteen hours a day? Chasing after money is as pointless as chasing the wind. I wanted my life to have meaning.
That's the big question for many people today—What's the Point? What is the meaning of life? When one looks at creation and the natural world with a critical eye, a logical person concludes that there must be a God or a Creator. If there is a Creator, He must have a plan that is being fulfilled on Earth. The plan is to train and transform individuals who will walk with Christ to go against the flow and the status quo of this world. There will come a time when God ends the testing and training of His people, and He will reward those who have lived their lives for Him and His kingdom.
In the following passage of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus focuses on the rewards given on the day when this evil world closes, found in chapter 6, verses 1, 4, 5, 6. We only have one life to live on Earth, and we should seize the opportunity now to glorify God and bless others. This reminder about rewards prompts us to live for eternal things rather than the things of this world, which can prove to be empty and fleeting. In His talk to the people that day, the Lord had words prompting us to live for eternal rewards:
Giving to the Needy
“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. 2"So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly, I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you (Matthew 6:1-4, Emphasis added).
Our motives are as important as our actions. Who are we living for? Our inner desire for the approval of those around us can be compelling, but do not let this be your goal. Jesus tells us to "Be careful" (v. 1) about our inner motivation to tell people about our acts of righteousness. Why are we like that? The Lord gives an example of things He has seen going on in Israel. He called out those who were hypocrites, a word that means a stage actor on the stage of life—those who would wear a mask and act out a character that was not true in their life. At a particular time in the temple courts, the trumpets would be blown to issue the call to give. People within earshot of the trumpets would drop what they were doing, put on a holy face, and parade themselves to the offering boxes. Yes, they receive a reward, but it is not for an eternal laying up of treasure; it is wasted because of the motivation of their hearts. They were not giving but buying. The hypocrites were looking for some payback in terms of the worldly influence that came back to them.
When the thought arises to give, Jesus said not to let your left hand know what your right hand is doing. How is that possible? Most people give with their right hand, so Jesus uses the laughable image of attempting to be so secret about our giving to God that the left hand is ignorant of it. He says that because our inner motivations can be deceitful and influence us more than we realize. The Lord really wants us to receive a heavenly reward that is eternal and not what is fleeting. Let’s continue this theme tomorrow. Keith Thomas
This meditation is from the complete study found at the following link: https://www.groupbiblestudy.com/engsermon/4.-the-heavenly-rewards-of-the-believer
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