You probably know fellow Christians in your church who are very good at living quietly for God. They visit those who are unwell, reach out to the unpopular and misunderstood, and much else besides, without any fuss or public acknowledgement. Others might not see, but God does, and he will reward them.

On the other hand, some people, even Christians, can be very good at ‘blowing their own trumpet’ (v 2). To be honest, we may all do that too sometimes; in subtle ways, we make sure that others hear about our good deeds. We might pretend we’re serving God, but really we’re looking for reward from others. Jesus called such behaviour hypocritical – a kind of speaking untruths through our words and actions. There are no rewards from heaven for such behaviour. Those who behave like this have already got the reward they were seeking from others (v 2). God is not impressed by outward behaviour which wants to show off, but looks at our inner life and motives.

Jesus again used exaggeration to make his point: your good deeds should be so secret that your left hand doesn’t know what the right hand is doing (v 3). But our Father in heaven always sees and knows the truth about our motives and the cost of our actions.