Appearance and Reality: Part 2 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning.

We want to start our day by listening to what God has to say to us. And to me, this is one of the greatest things about being a Christian, is that we hear from God.

It’s not just that we sort of have this vague picture of God somewhere out there in the universe, and we have no clue of really how to relate to Him or know Him. No, God is close. He’s near. He came into our world in the person of Jesus Christ, and Jesus rose from the dead. He’s alive today. We have a living relationship with Him.

And he wants to speak into our lives. Never think of God as distant. He’s wanting to guide your life. He’s wanting to be involved, and that’s why we take time each day to read the Bible, listening for his voice in our hearts, because the Bible is his self-revelation, and he takes that self-revelation written a couple of 1000 years ago – and he makes it living and active. He uses it in our lives to speak personally to each one of us.

We’re talking this week about the difference between appearance and reality in our Christian life, in our relationship with God, and so often we find ourselves trying to put on a good spiritual performance for people and hiding what’s really going on in the inside because there’s this expectation of how we need to perform to seem like a good person in front of other people.

But what God wants is for our outward life to simply be the outflow of our living relationship with Him that is healthy and growing.

We read yesterday in the sermon on the Mount where 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.

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He goes on to say, 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.

Well, what a challenge this is.

Don’t do your good things, including giving financially to needy causes or to the church in order to be noticed by people, to have your name written on a plaque. Don’t give to get kudos from people or to be thought highly of, no.

It’s about your heart’s response to what God has done for you, given to you, that you didn’t deserve and didn’t earn. He just gave freely into your life as Jesus came into our world and died on the cross for you. So you too will give freely.

You know that God has blessed you financially so that you can be a blessing and pass on the blessing he has put into your life. Yes, he wants you to enjoy what he has given you and blessed you with. That’s so much what the Bible teaches. God, who has richly supplied us with all things to enjoy. The apostle Paul writes to Timothy, but at the same time, in your heart is this giving attitude because of what God has given to you.

And when we start giving, sometimes even giving generously to the church in order to gain control and have a say in how things are done because we’ve given a lot or we give in order to be recognized and noticed for our giving.

Then you hear Jesus’ words, don’t you? Then you’ve already received your reward by the notice people are giving you. What God wants is for you to just give freely, not to be noticed, but to honor Him and to pass on what He has given to you. For sure, you should not hide your giving from your children and your family as you try to teach them how to live the giving lifestyle.

But do not give in order to be noticed. Give out of a giving heart.

I’m John North.

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