1 “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. 3 But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4 so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.REFLECTIONSWritten by Stephen SheadI wonder if your heart is as vain as mine? So often, when I’m doing something behind the scenes to serve God – like cleaning the church – I find myself secretly hoping that someone will walk in and see how self-sacrificial I’m being. It’s pathetic.What’s even worse is when I deliberately do my “good works” in a way that other people will see me and be impressed. It’s sobering to hear Jesus say, “you will have no reward from your Father in heaven” (v. 1).But the scariest part is what he says about the “hypocrites” in verse 2. These are people whose whole way of life is a pretence: they look like they are living lives of love for God, but they don’t really care what God thinks. Their real motivation is “to be honoured by others”. Jesus says that “they have received their reward in full”. That is, the only reward they will get is human praise in this life. They won’t hear God say, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”Our hearts are so deceitful! How can I know what my real motivation is? Often I can’t – which is why Jesus’ instructions here are so helpful. Do your good works – or at least, as many as you can – in secret, so nobody knows. That will help keep your heart from slipping into hypocrisy.Jesus must know this is a big danger area for us, because he applies it to three different practical areas in this chapter. The first one is generosity and giving, in verses 2-4.When we were in Chile, I was horrified to discover that there are some churches that publish how much all the members give to church! I’m so thankful that at St Barnabas, we don’t do anything like that – that would be too big a stumbling block for my heart.But the thing I found most comforting in this passage was the last sentence. It turns out that, even though we’re so vain and we deserve nothing from him, God loves rewarding us anyway! He does it simply because he is our Father through Jesus, and he loves us more than we can imagine.And this passage has reminded me that the best reward by far is to please my heavenly Father, without another soul knowing. Why don’t you pray, with me, that God will help you to remember that, believe it and live by it.ABOUT THE AUTHORStephen is our senior minister, and his heart is still very much a work in progress.