Right-ness before God includes everything we are and everything we do. Right-ness is not only our private meditation upon Him and His word. It is not only our personal prayer life and the quiet reflection of our souls. Right-ness before God (what the Bible calls “righteousness”) is inevitably expressed in our behaviour and habits. Right-ness includes the day to day interactions with family, friends and associates. Right-ness also includes our very public actions too. For life is lived largely in community among others. It includes every act of humility, kindness and generosity we participate in, when and wherever we are.
This fact can easily be manipulated by the demonic lie that if we look and sound right in our community, we will be considered righteous. That how we think and act in private and out of public view is somehow less important, or even worse, irrelevant. Such thinking is a grave error. Righteousness can never be a derivative of some form of impurity. Not public impurity, not private impurity, not even a deeply internal impurity. Impurity in any part of the whole contaminates the whole. As God sees the whole person – past, present and future all at the same time – one’s personal motivation to do something is as plain to Him as the greatest public spectacle we are part of.
To do public works of righteousness with twisted internal motive is akin to trying to deceive God. On three counts, actually – that of one’s personal witness to God, that of one’s witness to others made in His image, and that of one’s witness to the heavenly beings who serve Him day and night. How could God Most High – holy, holy, holy God – ever reward one who practices such hypocrisy? It will never happen. As Jesus said, “Be careful not to do your ‘acts of righteousness’ before men, to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven.”
Not only will the Lord not reward hypocrisy – unless we repent He will eventually reveal it for what it is. What starts out as a private and personal lie eventually becomes widely known public knowledge. This is a spiritual principle that applies to all; “…you may be sure that your sin will find you out!” That means that being mindful of God in public speech while being disrespectful of Him in private action is a recipe for being called out as a fraud – not only before human flesh, but before angels and celestial beings.
Jesus knows that all those made in His image are made for relationship, and so are prone to heed even the perception of peer pressure. Consequently, Jesus warns us, “Be careful.” Vigilance is called for, because while hypocrisy may be obvious to the objective onlooker, it is invisible to the subjective participant. It lies in wait, hidden like a snare, ready to destroy your witness whenever you trade eternal benefit for the most temporary of compliments. The only sure path forward is to keep one’s motivation and intentions in view, and ever in check.
Christian righteousness is righteousness unlimited. It must be allowed to penetrate beyond our actions and words to our heart, mind and motives, and to master us even in those hidden, secret places.
John Stott
APPLICATION: Intentionality
Be careful! Regularly check your intentions in prayer, asking Him to reveal to you what really lies behind them.