2 Therefore, when you do a charitable deed, do not sound a trumpet before you as the hypocrites do . . . But when you do a charitable deed, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 that your charitable deed may be in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly.
Jesus. Matthew 6:2-4. Hi, it’s Nathan, and this is Day 18 of 30 Days of Growing. True charity is never done for attention—or any benefit to one’s self. Now, this is certainly no rule against tax right-offs, etc, but it is a call to check one’s motives. How often do we try to get noticed for some good deed we’ve done—or feel let down when we aren’t noticed? Those little inner responses are pretty accurate cues as to why we do what we do. Now, God doesn’t have a thing against high-visibility charity. But kingdom-level charity is heart-motivated, not done for attention or tax-right-offs. Fundamentally, God doesn’t want us to live under the illusion that we’re good people just because of the charity we do, when in reality we’re just super-self-absorbed people wearing ‘Mr. Generosity’ or ‘Miss Charity’ t-shirts.
