Don’t do your good deeds publicly,
to be admired by others,
for you will lose the reward
from your Father in heaven.

Matthew 6:1
(NLT)
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A big lesson that came through meditation recently was around the idea of serving others instead of solely worrying about myself.

Here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus speaks about serving your own spiritual pride instead of serving others (and therefore God) with devotion.

In meditation I heard that inner motivation is more important than outer actions.

Here Jesus explains that ulterior motivations turn good deeds into selfish actions.

He goes on to say something akin to, “When you do good deeds, don’t blow trumpets in the streets as the hypocrites do. Truly I tell you, they have their reward in full.”

Of course, here I am posting on a platform designed for approval by others, on display in the virtual streets of the public eye. Feels somewhat hypocritical, but I’d like to think there is a subtle difference between:

~ performing deeds so that others think God is good
~ performing deeds so that others think we are good

One is righteousness, and the other is arrogance.

Hopefully I’m leaning toward the former and not the latter. (But then again, I don’t know who’s actually reading these commentaries anyway…)

Scratch everything here off the good deeds tally if you will, but the lesson here is this: The praise of men is the reward hypocrites serve themselves, while the unseen deeds are those that God rewards when no one else is looking.