For His Eyes Only
Matthew 6:1-4
If you have ever gone for a job interview, one of the questions that you will be asked is something like this: "Tell me what you have done in the past that would qualify you for this job?" Or, they may ask you something like this: "What character qualities do you have that would make me want to hire you?"
But if you will think back to any job interview you have ever had you were never asked this question: "Why do you do what you do?" When people try to size us up and find out what kind of persons we are, they go to our methods, but never to our motives.
I heard about a young lady who wrote this sweet note to her ex-fiancée, whose heart she had broken a year before. It said:
Dear John,
I have been unable to sleep since we broke off our engagement. It has shattered me. I just cannot live any longer without you. Won't you forgive and forget? Your absence is breaking my heart. I was a fool to leave you. Nobody can take your place. I love you so much. Please call soon. I wait anxiously by the telephone to hear your voice.
Love Always,
Donna
Then she added this:
P.S. Congratulations on winning the $6 million lottery!
Now when we judge people, or even judge ourselves, we tend to look at the body of the letter and don't pay much attention to the P.S. That is how we are so different from God because we look at the "what" where God looks at the "why." We look at "how much" God looks at "how." We judge a person by "their methods" God judges a person by "their motive."
Remember the Sermon on the Mount is telling us, truth by truth, "the only way to live." The Lord Jesus is going to spend almost the entire chapter before us, teaching us that the only way to live is to live without hypocrisy. Here He deals with the area of giving to the poor; doing things for other people. He makes three simple statements to remind us that when we give to others, or do for others, it is to be "for His eyes only."
