What can the praise of men really add to us anyway? Do they really know us? The only reward that the boaster has from them is extracted by fraud. Yes, the one who adopts a sad countenance is indeed fasting, but what men see is not true devotion to God but an act of deceit. We are then trying to get them to praise us for something that is not true of us. How can we rest content with such praise? The whole of life is turned into a charade and what we present before the world is not real. How is there any value in that? Surely men want to be praised for what they really are, and not for what they pretend to be. We live with our own lie, and, apart from anything else, it eats away at any true happiness, because anything we do gain, we know to be undeserved. On the outside there is a show, and the closer they get to the heart, the more ugly and false it becomes.
How different is the reward of God! He rewards what is real, what is sincere and has integrity to it. He evaluates us in our innermost being, and when he gives praise it is for what is really there. From deep within the sincere man or woman proceeds sincere acts, not polluted by pride and show. From the start of the Christian life, God’s work proceeds from the inside out. All pretence is banished; every act must be genuine to satisfy him. There is a world of falsehood excluded by the simple practice that Christ exhorts here.
There is nothing more obnoxious to God than making a show of religion. It is like a man who pretends to speak kind words to his wife, while the real focus of his attention is his mistress who happens to be in the room at the same time. If someone commits an act of hypocrisy in the matter of religion, that hypocrisy will soon spread to every other area of their lives. What God sees is someone who worships man, not God. He sees someone who is not afraid to provoke his anger by an act of extreme disloyalty. This person has no fear of God in their heart. They can never do any single act of piety in an acceptable way, because the foundation is deceit and anything built on that foundation is bound to fall.
If Christ had said that the Father would reward us in secret, we would be happy, but what he says is that he will reward us openly. The reason God wishes us to come to him in secret is not so that his favour to us should be concealed, but to prevent us spoiling his favour to us by our wrong motive. In contrast to our secret acts of righteousness, God’s reward is open. We will see his reward and should be aware of it. The world will not know why we are being rewarded because we acted in secret and they do not know the cause, but even in this life they will know in some way that we are blessed. They may try to dismiss the idea and account for it in other ways, but it will eat away at them. On the last day, God’s reward will be fully given, and then, not only our reward but our acts of righteousness will be on open display.