This essay continues a sequence. Read the previous one here.
Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them:
otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven.
Therefore when thou doest thine alms,
do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets,
that they may have glory of men.
Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
That thine alms may be in secret:
and thy Father which seeth in secret Himself shall reward thee openly.
— KJV, Matt 6:1-4
Spiritual, not social, impact..
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Publicizing acts of generosity, charity, community support, etc. is a very common practice amongst individuals, social groups, religious organizations, and businesses. Much of this is initiated by people who profess to be followers of Christ.
We can infer that:
- Public displays of generosity are in sync with The Word, or
- We have misinterpreted this Instruction, or
- We know about this Instruction, but prefer to ignore it.
“Do not your alms before men” appears to be a clear enough indication that generosity should, by default, be private.
Christ, being The Word, also lived The Word. So we can study His own approach:
And he put forth his hand,
and touched him,
saying, I will: be thou clean.
And immediately the leprosy departed from him.
And he charged him to tell no man
— Luke 5:13-14
Clearly, Christ preferred minimal fanfare. We already mentioned this in “Cast Thyself Down!“.
We say by default because sometimes attention is inescapable, such as when Christ would have to heal the sick in the presence of a large crowd. Hence the importance of the words “to be seen of them … that they may have glory of men”: motive (spiritual volition) is everything. Whether our action will be acknowledged by anyone should be immaterial, otherwise our action is not spiritually pure.
“Anyone” includes the beneficiary, as we shall discuss later in this essay.
Given the foregoing, we conclude that public displays of generosity are not aligned with The Word. So we “have no reward of our Father which is in heaven” for such.
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Christ is One with the Will of God, and therefore His Word is One with the Laws of Creation (ref “Will vs Love: A Divine Quantum Entanglement“). Therefore, this lack of a reward is not a random “punishment” but a natural result of the Laws of Creation.
In “Creating Is Perpetual” we explored the Law of Sowing and Reaping described in The Word. This Law decrees that if we sow seed of a certain kind, Creation will produce a harvest of a similar kind.
There are so many “kinds” (species). For simplicity and brevity, let us just say that there are material kinds and spiritual kinds. A material kind will produce a material result, and a spiritual kind a spiritual one.
We sow the earthly seed of attention-seeking (or a similar kind) and, to a greater or lesser extent, we reap earthly benefits: attention, acknowledgement, respect, influence, self-satisfaction, etc. The Law of Sowing and Reaping is therefore fulfilled.
But these are not the Father’s Blessings, because His rewards are spiritual, while our seed was earthly. Whereas an action sown in pure love would have yielded a spiritual harvest.
“Creating Is Perpetual” also makes clear that the spiritual eventually “crystallizes” into the material. Therefore the Father’s spiritual blessings will also eventually influence our material conditions positively. In other words, He “shall seeth in secret and reward openly“.
His Ways are not our ways. His Blessings will not necessarily appear in a way we expect or in a way mankind respects, but they will surely materialize in a way that brings us peace and joy.
We have established that seeking attention detracts from the spiritual value of our “good” actions. But there is much more to the Instruction. We shall continue our exploration in the next essay.
Today’s Resolution:
- We shall pray and work against vanity, which expresses itself in seeking the honour of men instead of the honour of the Almighty.
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