Sunday Matthew 6:1-18

When I think about getting a reward it makes me pretty excited. Usually it means I've done something right and someone is pleased with me, such as when I won the school coloring contest and got a Garfield comic book. Of course it feels even better to think about getting a reward from the Father. Three times in chapter 6 this idea of a reward comes into play. Vs 4,8,18 "...and your Father, who knows all secrets, will reward you."

As my eyes move beyond the idea of a reward my heart is a little confused how this idea fits in with the context of three very common things to the Christian life. Giving, prayer, and fasting. Things Jesus taught us to do and rightly "expects" to be a part of our lives. All of a sudden through this passage these three areas seem to be given greater importance. There is now a right and wrong way to do each of them and there's this idea of the Father seeing and rewarding. In some ways this is discouraging to me. Not only do I have to try to give, pray, and fast, but now I have to do them in the right way. I'm pretty happy if I do them at all.

I think though, that the point here isn't to give us a checklist, or to discourage us, but a heart gauge. Each of the don't do's seem to be a call to a lack of self. We don't give, pray, or fast to be noticed. There is the acknowledgement of the fact that the Father sees us, which shows deeper that His relationship with us is what matters in each of these acts. They all require something of us. Time, energy, initiative, perhaps money. It isn't just about the fact of whether we give, pray, and fast, but that we do it within the context of a relationship with the Father.

Maybe partly how this fits into the idea of a reward is to be able to trust that God really sees when we are living our lives for Him. He doesn't miss the prayer we prayed or the fact that we sacrificed food for time with Him. He "knows all secrets". I still don't really understand what the full reward is. It's for sure more than the acknowledgement that we did something by others. That's the common reward everyone gets wether they are following Christ or not. Could be intimacy with Him, reward in heaven...(would love to hear other thoughts on this.) What I do know is God has given us the ability to follow Him in these areas and sees it as something worthy of reward. That makes it important to think about and align my life to. I know I can do none of this in my own strength, but by His Spirit's power in me it is possible to live in such a way.