Check Our Motives!

Outlive Your Life! by Max Lucado

Chapter 9: Do Good, Quitely

Hypocrisy turns people away from God.

“Be especially careful when you are trying to be good so that you don’t make a performance out of it. It might be good theater, but the God who made you won’t be applauding.” (Matt. 6:1 MSG)

Hypocrisy turns people against God. So God has no-tolerance policy. Let’s take hypocrisy as seriously as God does. How can we?

1. 1. Expect no credit for good deeds. None. If no one notices, you aren’t disappointed. If someone does, you give the credit to God. Ask yourself this question: “If no one knew of the good I do, would I still do it?” If not, you’re doing it to be seen by people.

2. 2. Give financial gifts in secret. Money stirs the phony within us. We like to be seen earning it. And we like to be seen giving it. So “when you give to someone in need, don’t let your left hand know what your right hand is doing.” (Matt. 6:3 NLT)

3. 3. Don’t fake spirituality. When you go to church, don’t select a seat just to be seen or sing just to be heard. If you raise your hands in worship, raise holy ones, not showy ones. When you talk, don’t doctor your vocabulary with trendy religious terms. Nothing nauseates more than a fake “Praise the Lord” or a shallow “Hallelujah” or an insincere “Glory be to God.”

Focus on the inside, and the outside will take care of itself. Lay your motives before God daily, hourly.

“Search me, O God, and know my heart: test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends you, and lead me along the path of ever-lasting life.” (Ps. 139:24-24 NLT)

Do good things. Just don’t do them to be noticed. You can be too good for your own good, you know.