In Matthew 6:1-4, Jesus said:

“Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.”

The hypocrites. A hypocrite is someone who pretends to be better than he is. The hypocrites were probably the Pharisees. What did these hypocrites do? They let everybody know that they gave to the needy, the poor. The Pharisees wanted everyone to know so that everyone would think they were good. When in fact they were not. Jesus tells us not to do what these hypocrites did.

Instead of announcing your good deeds to everyone so you can receive your “Wow, what a good person”-reward, Jesus tells us to give to the needy in secret. Help the needy, and do it humbly and quietly.

The act of humbly, quietly, secretly giving to the needy requires a humble and quiet heart.

The hypocrites had a prideful heart. Their hearts were sinful, and wanted to fool people into believing they were good.

To give to the needy humbly, quietly, and secretly requires a heart that is humble and quiet. Unless our hearts our transformed, unless we receive a brand new heart, a heart like the heart of Jesus, we will never be able to give to the needy the way Jesus wants us to.

How do we get this new heart? There is only one way: we must believe the heart we currently have produces sin. An apple tree produces apples. We can’t expect an apple tree to produce bananas. The same applies to our hearts. Our sinful hearts naturally produce sin. Even our righteous acts are worthless.

In Isaiah 6:6 it says:

“All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags…”

Righteous acts that were produced from a sinful heart are like filthy rags. Only righteous acts produced from a righteous heart is considered righteous.

To have a righteous heart, we must start by taking care of the sinful nature of our hearts. We do that by admitting our sinful nature. Once we admit our sinfulness, we can go to Jesus and receive forgiveness. Jesus already completed the work of forgiving us when he took our punishment on the cross. Jesus died so that we would not have to. When we receive forgiveness for our sins, for our sinfulness, we are a new creation. We now have a new heart: the heart of Jesus. As Jesus was going up to heaven, he sent the Holy Spirit to be with us. The Holy Spirit is in us and is continually transforming our hearts so that our hearts will be perfectly righteous like the heart of Jesus. We can begin to produce righteousness from a righteous heart.

We can begin to give to the needy in the way Jesus wants us to: humbly, quietly, and in secret.

The hypocrites wanted the praise of people. The hypocrites wanted to hear from the people around them, “What a good person.” With a new heart, the heart of Jesus, what we want most to hear, is from our Father in heaven. And that is the Father in heaven saying to us, “I am well pleased with you.” That is a reward worth seeking.