1 Timothy 5:25 Commentary and Bible Study

The same can be said about good works. Some good works are pretty obvious. That doesn't mean that the apostle is implying that people only do them to be seen. But in the case of some good works, it is obvious that people are doing well, that people are striving hard for the Lord, that they are making every effort to take themselves in hand and to be sanctified people. They are doing good, and doing acts of kindness, and they are witnessing and engaging in Christian service. So some good deeds are almost heralds going before. They are visible and they are seen. But equally the Lord counts as very precious another kind of good deed which will be rewarded especially in the Day of Judgment because nobody knows that they are done. The prayers that are offered up for other people, the secret intercessory prayer, the good works of intercession: nobody knows that you are doing them. Nobody knows that you have them and their souls and their concerns on your heart. Then too the unseen counsels. There are shepherds in our midst. There are people who in an unseen manner give much good and helpful counsel to others. They do not do it pompously. They do not do it arrogantly. They do it so carefully, so gently. People scarcely know they are getting it. They don't run other people's lives for them. But they do give much encouragement and much help and nobody credits them for it. Nobody gives them any special title for doing that. It's almost an unseen ministry except to the one or two who benefit. Yet the final day will bring it to light and the Lord will smile upon it and reward it. Then there are friendships that are such a benefit and a blessing to people. Then there are victories in your own heart. Nobody knows whether you've had a great victory over your heart's sins and your secret motives and your secret thoughts. Nobody will pat you on the back and say, well done, in this life. But God will bring it to light in the end of time and all the final day of judgment, one of the grand things that will happen is this, that while our sins, our awful sins, will have to be finally answered for and written off and done away with by the Lord of glory for us, yet the works of grace by the Holy Spirit in the hearts of countless believers will be brought openly to light and will be rewarded almost as though they were our works, which of course, really they are not.