A though triggered and heavily influenced by God Untamed by Johannes Hartl
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Jesus, in His wisdom, cautions us not once, but three times, to perform our acts of charity, fasting, and prayer in secret—each admonition a gentle invitation to humility (Matt 6:2-4, 5-6, 16-18). In this hiddenness, our pride is quietly confronted and undone.
The Gospels lay bare the truth that, deep within our fallen hearts, a monstrous pride lurks—a persistent force that can masquerade as virtue. Our most generous actions, cloaked in selflessness, are not immune to its touch. The warning not to display our goodness before others is, at its heart, a call to restrain the restless ego, to silence the craving for human praise, and to resist the temptation to elevate ourselves, even in the eyes of those around us.
Yet Jesus presses further. It is not enough to conceal our good works from the world; we are also called to hide them from ourselves. “Do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing” (Matt 6:4). Here, the challenge is to guard against the inner voice that seeks to applaud itself, to dismiss the secret cheerleader within. The deed must stand alone, offered before God, unadorned by self-congratulation.
For in truth, no good act springs from our own strength. Any selfless deed is, at its core, an act of self-denial—a reluctant surrender to the quiet workings of God’s grace within us. Our nature, inclined toward self, resists this surrender. Only in God is goodness its own fulfillment, for He alone is goodness itself.
To think otherwise is to place ourselves on the same pedestal as God, to claim a self-sufficiency that does not belong to us. Good deeds, when divorced from grace, only serve to inflate our pride. Jesus teaches that when we act in secret, seeking no reward but God’s, it is our Father in heaven who will reward us. If we seek only the approval of others—or even our own—the fleeting satisfaction of pride is all we receive.
Ultimately, in surrendering ourselves completely to God, we discover that it is He who enables us to love, to act, to give. This is the grace we must beg for: the ability to love Him as He desires. In this, we find our true reward—a deepening intimacy where every good thing is received from His hand. I love Him because He is; He loves me because I am His.