Thy Father Which Seeth in Secret

I had to smile at a quote I saw yesterday from a politician discussing his faith as a Christian: “We have a rule: If you do something good and talk about it, it no longer counts.” That seems pretty consistent with what the Savior taught, but then he also added this, “So what you have to do is to get someone else to talk about you.” Getting someone else to talk about your good works to make sure you are recognized publicly for them doesn’t quite seem to fit what the Savior was going for. Here is what He said in the Sermon on the Mount, “Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven. Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:1-4). What matters is what God sees, and since He sees all, we don’t need to worry about trying to be seen of men for our actions. I love the words that Alma taught his son Corianton in this week’s Come, Follow Me lesson: “Therefore, my son, see that you are merciful unto your brethren; deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, ye shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgment restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again. For that which ye do send out shall return unto you again, and be restored” (Alma 41:14-15). Ultimately we can be assured that if we seek to do good, the Lord will reward us in His own way and time. We will in the end reap what we sow: what we “send out” through our actions will eventually come back to us. And so we do not need to worry about getting recognized for others for our actions. If the only reward we want is to have the glory of men, it will be a very poor substitute for the blessings the Lord wants to give those who serve Him in secret.

                Of course, to not be motivated by what people think of your actions is a lot easier said than done. We all want to be validated and recognized for the things that we do before others, even if it is just close family members and friends. Surely that is not all bad, but to truly live as the Savior wants us, our primary motivation must be what God thinks of us and our actions. Peter and John gave us a powerful example of what this looks like when they were arrested and judged before the Jewish leaders in Jerusalem after Christ had ascended into heaven. Luke recorded how they were arrested for preaching and stood before Annas the high priest and others. After boldly testifying of Jesus Christ, “They called them, and commanded them not to speak at all nor teach in the name of Jesus.” Peter and John responded with these powerful words, “Whether it be right in the sight of God to hearken unto you more than unto God, judge ye. For we cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard” (Acts 4:18-20). In the next chapter they were back in Jerusalem healing people, and they were arrested again. These apostles showed that what mattered to them was what the Lord wanted them to do—“feed my sheep”—and they could not be dissuaded by the opinions of men. When, like them, our greatest motivation is what the Lord wants us to do and how He feels about us, then we will not care about being recognized or criticized or even cast out by men. We will simply strive to do what we feel He would have us do. And we certainly won’t need to worry about getting others to talk about us.