To Encourage You

Matthew 5:14-16 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden.Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”

How does a person bring glory to God, as Jesus commanded in the passage above, rather than bring glory to himself or herself?  On the one hand, Jesus tells us to “let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”  On the other hand, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees for doing what was apparently this very thing, for right after Jesus spoke the words above, He said this: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward” (Matthew 6:2). 

How confusing this seems, at first glance.  Jesus tells us to do our good works before men, but then he rebukes those who do just that, or so it seems.  But notice that Jesus contrasts those who do what they do to let their light shine before others and “bring glory to God” with those who do their “good deeds” “to be praised by others,” i.e., other men.  In other words, whenever we do things for people, it is the motives for doing them that will demonstrate whether they are indeed good works or evil.  When one’s motives are to bring glory to God with the things they do for other people, it will be much different than if they do things for other people for the purpose of bringing glory to themselves. 

Giving is an example of this. There are people that give a lot of money to others or give to good causes, but they make sure that others around them know about what they’ve done. They want to be known as wonderful people.  There are others who give discreetly.  They may bless someone with a wonderful gift, but the only one that knows about that gift is the person to whom the gift was given – or perhaps it’s an anonymous gift.  In this case, the good works are seen, but they aren’t.  In such a case all the glory goes to God, for who else can the person who received the gift thank?   Such a gift giver knows that God sees, and that’s all that really matters to them.  

Another test: we should always ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing.  Is our motive truly the love and glory of Christ or is it for some other reason, such as to bring attention to ourselves?   If the light of Christ is in a person’s heart, God wants that light to shine.  But when others see that light, it should be such that they will “give glory to your Father who is in heaven,” if not right now, then sometime in the future when and if our acts are among those things that help turn their heart to know God and glorify Him.   

Our light should shine out to the glory of God, rather than shining on ourselves to bring glory to us.  This is only possible if God is truly directing a person.  It is that person who prays in secret, spending time alone with the Father, seeking always to glorify Him and asking for the wisdom and humility to do so. For you see, it is a temptation, even in prayer, to glorify ourselves just like the hypocritical Pharisees who loved to “stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others” (Matthew 6:5). 

May God give us the wisdom to do what we do to glorify Him rather than ourselves.  And may God give us the discernment to know the difference.