‘Your Father who sees in secret will Himself reward you openly’
Matt 6:1-4, 5-8 and 16-18

A. Reward
Three important disciplines we are to do in secret
- Jesus warns the people who live in the Kingdom of God to jealously guard secrecy in doing charitable deeds towards the poor, in prayer and in fasting toward God
- ‘When’ and not ‘if’ we follow the Jesus commandments
- All these 3 disciplines have expected rewards. Interestingly it is the Father who rewards, not Christ Himself.

What or Who is our reward
Gen 15:1 After these things the word of the LORD came to Abram in a vision, saying, “Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your exceedingly great reward.”
- This verse came after the rescue of Lot (Gen 14:23), not seeking man’s reward and God appeared to him (‘after these things’). Abram’s righteousness (conduct and/or state of being right before God) was clearly displayed by his response to the king of Sodom in that he (Gen 14:22) has ‘lifted his hand’ to the most High God, Who possesses all things. Also from Whom he receives all things
- Abram (as he was called at that moment in time) received God’s Word (do we get Rhema?). Have we been confronted by the Word Himself?
1. Called by name, denoting relationship and communion with the Almighty. We may claim to know God, but truly, does He know us?
2. ‘Fear not’. This is the blessing of living in peace with the Prince of Peace reigning over us.
3. With peace comes security – how true is this Psalm to us personally?
Psalm 121 (A Song of Ascents) I will lift up my eyes to the hills— From whence comes my help? My help comes from the LORD, Who made heaven and earth. He will not allow your foot to be moved; He who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, He who keeps Israel Shall neither slumber nor sleep. The LORD is your keeper; The LORD is your shade at your right hand. The sun shall not strike you by day, Nor the moon by night. The LORD shall preserve you from all evil; He shall preserve your soul.The LORD shall preserve your going out and your coming in From this time forth, and even forevermore.
4. God Himself is our reward, not ‘what’ is our reward. This will reveal the depth or shallowness of our faith
Psa 73:25-26 Whom have I in heaven but You? And there is none upon earth that I desire besides You. My flesh and my heart fail; But God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

It’s a question of our love
1 John 2:15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him
- If God is our exceeding great reward, it is because we obey the first and greatest commandment to love Him
- There are times when we look for another ‘reward’ in the form of justice
1 John 4:20-21 If someone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen? And this commandment we have from Him: that he who loves God must love his brother also.
- If we look for justice as our reward we forsake both commandments to love God and to love others as we love ourselves, for Jesus specifically asked us to even live the extraordinary life to love our enemies, bless those who curse us, do good to those who hate us and pray for those who spitefully use and persecute us (Matt 5:44)
- Seeking for justice as our reward voids us of God’s love, thus missing out the reward that Father wants to give us

B. Secret
- Why ‘secret’? The answer is the consciousness in giving, praying and fasting and not is literally hiding our deeds from human eyes
- Does this contradict with Matt 5:16 'Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven?
- Jesus certainly didn’t give conflicting commands. We are indeed to be salt of the earth and light of the world; He is reminding us it is in the ‘being’ that important. Being salt and light is more of a natural character as much as dogs bark and cats meow. There is neither show nor self consciousness involved.
- When there is self consciousness, pride can creep in unknowingly. Instead of the Father getting the glory, we steal from Him
- How can we check this? Is there is continually hungering and thirsting for righteousness? Are we meek? Is there purity of motives?
- Jesus is warning against hypocrisy; pretense of having some desirable or publicly approved attitude
- ‘Secret’ is in the sense of losing our self consciousness in doing those 3 important disciplines but it becomes a natural unforced Kingdom life
Zec 7:5 “Say to all the people of the land, and to the priests: ‘When you fasted and mourned in the fifth and seventh months during those seventy years, did you really fast for Me—for Me?
- For example in fasting, is there only a consciousness towards our Father or for self benefit

C. Charitable deeds
Prov 19:17 He who has pity on the poor lends to the LORD, And He will pay back what he has given.
Psa 112:9 He has dispersed abroad, He has given to the poor; His righteousness endures forever; His horn will be exalted with honor.
- It is the unforced action of the righteous to give to the poor and when we give to the poor we lend to the Lord. Guess Who will be paying back our righteous deeds?
- We are reminded again on the issue of the reward
Acts 10:4 And when he observed him, he was afraid, and said, “What is it, lord?” So he said to him, “Your prayers and your alms have come up for a memorial before God.
- God remembers our consideration for the poor and it becomes a memorial (preserving memory) before Him as it did with Cornelius
Jam 1:27 Pure and undefiled religion before God and the Father is this: to visit orphans and widows in their trouble, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.
- James shows us the test of purity of our religion or he means in our practice of religion showing inward Godliness. This determines how much we are conformed to the image of Christ
Eph 2:10 For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.
- We are created for a purpose, so that we are the ones that fulfill God’s will on earth as it is in Heaven. Count it a privilege to participate in God’s divine plan
- The warning is vainglory or glory obtained from man. Blowing a trumpet is a selfish act that draws man’s praises and celebration which doesn’t carry an eternal value
- Lauding of one’s self is a sure sign that we have not obeyed Christ command to follow Him and carry our cross daily…. Praises from man feed the self and denying the glory that is due to God
1 Sam 2:7 The LORD makes poor and makes rich; He brings low and lifts up.
- Hannah’s prayer reminds us that its God’s sovereignty to make one rich, those who have extra are accountable to God. We are reminded in Luke 12:15 about covetousness (for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.)
- What does it mean to be ‘rich’? We often correlate riches to abundance in wealth but God’s perspective of rich is having enough to share with others. It is the level contentment (1 Tim 6:8) and not hoarding.

D. Praying
1 Thess 5:17 pray without ceasing
- ‘Our thinking about prayer, whether right or wrong, is based on our own mental conception of it. The correct concept is to think of prayer as the breath in our lungs and the blood from our hearts.’ – Oswald Chambers
- Praying as Paul puts it is our lifeline, done again, as unforced. It would be as natural to pray as a baby crying out to his or her parents
- ‘in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets’, this is our privilege; our prayers are not confined to places

The ‘place’ of prayer
Eph 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Luke 22:41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed,
Prayer is humility, not one that stands on one’s confidence. It is in meekness we approach His Holiness
- Others may love praying for prayer itself, we pray because we love God. Prayer is not meant to be a refined ‘art form’ but rather building a deeper relationship with our Father (‘In this manner therefore pray…‘Our Father…’)
Matt 7:8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
- The place of prayer is one that is ready to hear clearly for answered prayer; we must believe that God has will answer as we ask. The place of prayer has to be ‘secret’ because there will be times when the answer from God requires deep searching and making the right response. Often God wants to deal with us privately. Dare we pray such a prayer.....
Psa 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart; Try me, and know my anxieties; And see if there is any wicked way in me, And lead me in the way everlasting.

Babbling
Job 9:14 “How then can I answer Him, And choose my words to reason with Him?
- He doesn’t mean repetitions but itself but making vain ones that would amount to nothing but meaningless words. Our prayer would be meaningful if we pray what is God’s heart so that the will of God will be manifested ‘on earth as it is in heaven’. Keep in mind that ‘For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.’ Thus our prayers should confirm what He knows best for us, He wants us to grow into this maturity in prayer.
- What better prayers to offer than to pray from His Word back to Him
Rom 8:27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.
- Maturity in prayer is finally we have learned ‘We are not to prescribe, but subscribe to God’ – Matthew Henry.
Rom 1:21 Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.
- Another way our prayer becomes vain is when we form a ‘god’ of our own imaginations and offer prayers to that god. This is where we even form the answer that suits us rather than we coming into God’s will

E. Fasting
Psa 35:13 But as for me, when they were sick, My clothing was sackcloth; I humbled myself with fasting; And my prayer would return to my own heart.
- Fasting is an act of humbling our souls before God. Knowing who God is and where we are in Him.
- When we are humble in fasting our prayer will go back to the heart, meaning it will come back to the heart matters of prayer and God will teach us this, lest we return to vain prayers.
1 Cor 7:5 Do not deprive one another except with consent for a time, that you may give yourselves to fasting and prayer; and come together again so that Satan does not tempt you because of your lack of self-control.
- Fasting is a denial of self, which means that the flesh is made to subject to the spirit. It is certainly more than a bodily exercise and weight control, but rather brining our flesh under the spirit’s control.
Prov 16:32 He who is slow to anger is better than the mighty, And he who rules his spirit than he who takes a city.
- A good example is in dealing with anger. Our spirit is weak and can’t control this emotion that may result in destructive end. Fasting provides the means to put this emotion under the control of a stronger spirit.
- Fasting puts us in the place where the areas of fleshly struggles can be severely dealt with and victory will soon come.