Do good things for God's glory and not for your own

Be careful, not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward form your Father in heaven. Matthew 6:1.

In this verse Jesus teaches us what the motive of the heart should be for doing good works.

Jesus warns us to be careful not to do good things just to be recognized by people so we become proud in what we do.

Rather, we should do things with the motive to help the individual or a group, but for the glory of God.  It’s all about motive here. 

There are many people that will do things only because other people are watching, but when their audience departs, so does their act.

This means that the person is more concerned about how others perceive them rather than actually doing something to bless the other person.

They only want to meet the needs of others if they get recognized for it.

As you go about doing things for Jesus Christ, please make sure that your motive is to bring glory to God.

Does this mean that God wants us to do our works for Him in a dark corner?

The answer to this is not at all. As we balance scripture with scripture Jesus also told us to let our light shine before men so that they will see our good works and glorify the Father in heaven. 

This was the same principle Paul taught in 1 Corinthians chapter 3:13 where he says that Jesus will test the quality of each man’s work.

Note that the emphasis here is not in quantity (although God wants us to produce great things for His glory) but the focus is on motive.

As you go about your every day Christian life, give some consideration about why you do what you do.

Some people are so focused on serving the church that they actually are not serving God.

An indication of this is when someone in the church hurts them … they stop serving. The reason why is because they were serving people more than they were God, 

As you go about doing your ministry, ensure that you are doing it for God’s glory. It is more important to bring glory to God than to look good. God has promised that whatever we do for Him will be rewarded.  And motive actually determines reward (1 Corinthians 3:14).

Gary C. Simons serves as the Senior Pastor of Cornerstone Bible Fellowship, currently meeting at CedarBridge Academy each Sunday at 10am.