Only the glory of God to be the most important!

Only the glory of God to be the most important!

In Matthew chapter 6 Jesus taught the deadly nature of "seeking the glory of men" as an evil mental attitude. Jesus used 18 verses to warn this evil nature more than any other specific character. Even when we do the right spiritual activities, this deadly character is doing it with the wrong mental attitude.

In these 18 verses, Jesus specifically mentioned about three spiritual activities.

1) Giving and helping others (verses 1-4).

2) Praying (verses 5-15).

3) Fasting (16-18).

All the three activities are spiritually good deeds. Jesus handled these in His life. He urged all His disciples to adopt the same. Yes, it is very important to follow these things continuously throughout our lifetime. But here Jesus warned that if we had done such good deeds with a wrong mindset, the good deeds that we done will be tainted!

The Old Testament didn't emphasize "our mental intentions" too much. Because the Old Testament emphasized only the outward life of man. The Law condemned and taught the flaws of such outward life. But now in the New Testament, Jesus said that our righteousness should be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees (Matthew 5:20).

The Pharisees practiced outward righteousness such as giving, praying, and fasting. But behind all these good deeds of theirs, the evil mindset of selfish "seeking the glory of men" was inhabited.

Now, if our righteousness is to be greater than the righteousness of the Pharisees, all the good divine righteousness that we do, must be done only for the sake of God's Glory!

Prayer:

Our loving Father! Change the evil attitude that seeks "the glory of men" in our activities and grant us the grace to do all things for the glory of God! In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.

Author:

Brother Zac Poonen