To Be Seen: A Devotional on Matthew 6
Updated: Oct 17
We have all learned to write for an audience that is not in the room. A phone comes up before the moment has finished happening. A sentence gets rehearsed, not for the person across from us, but for whoever might read it later. How many of your good deeds were done without anyone finding out?
This is not new, and it is not really about phones.
Long before there was a feed to perform for, Jesus named the same appetite, and He named it before He described a single behavior:
Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 6:1, ESV
This is not a command to hide every good thing you do. The same Sermon tells us to:
Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:16, ESV
The target was never visibility, only which audience you are performing for. Most of us already know which one we default to.
He names three disciplines after that first warning: giving, praying, fasting. None of the three is the problem, not really. It's who each one is performed for. The hypocrites sound a trumpet before they give, "that they may be praised by others" (Matthew 6:2); the reward is already spent, in full, by the time the coin lands. Stand where you can be watched praying, and the same verdict follows you home (Matthew 6:5). Even fasting, the discipline nobody would think to perform, gets its face rearranged for effect, "that their fasting may be seen by others" (Matthew 6:16), same as the other two.
What does this look like when it is not caught early? A chapter later Jesus turns the same charge on the scribes and Pharisees, and He does not soften it:
They do all their deeds to be seen by others. Matthew 23:5, ESV
Wide phylacteries. Long fringes. The best seat, the loudest greeting. Luke records the same instinct running in reverse, self-justification instead of self-display, and Jesus treats them as one problem, not two:
You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is exalted among men is an abomination in the sight of God. Luke 16:15, ESV
Why the difference? Because the two courtrooms are not weighing the same evidence. When Samuel stood ready to anoint one of Jesse's sons, he looked at Eliab and assumed the Lord's man would look like a king. The Lord stopped him before the thought finished forming:
The LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart. 1 Samuel 16:7, ESV
Which is a distinction we cannot manufacture our way around.
(We say we know this. We arrange our lives like we don't.)
In moments of reflective honesty, I realize that I'm not just doing it for the kingdom. I realize that I'm doing it to be seen. It feels good. When the post is reshared, the analytics grow, the compliments come, the followers rise. Feelings are deceptive and I must measure my self when it comes to my relationship with these things. If I'm not careful. They can take me away from the real purpose. To be seen by God as sharing Jesus not trading places and taking His glory.
Having said this, Paul knew exactly what it cost to aim at the right courtroom. Writing to a church being talked out of the gospel by men eager to be liked, he asked the question we should ask ourselves:
For am I now seeking the approval of man, or of God? Or am I trying to please man? If I were still trying to please man, I would not be a servant of Christ. Galatians 1:10, ESV
We cannot serve both. Most of us try anyway.
Paul names the alternative directly:
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Philippians 2:3, ESV
He does not leave that floating as a nice idea. He grounds it in the one person who had the strongest claim in history to being seen, and who spent that claim on the opposite. Though in the form of God, He:
...emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, and being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:6–8, ESV
If self-display was ever going to be justified anywhere, it would have been justified there. It just wasn't. What claim do we have that His did not?
Consider the difference between a prism and a pane of clean glass. A prism takes the light and bends it into a show, an announcement, something you notice about the prism itself. Clean glass does nothing you'd really remark on; it simply lets what is behind it come through. That is the whole difference between performing righteousness and living it. Something in us wants to be the prism. Most days, if we're honest, more than we'd like to admit.
We do not have to perform for God's attention, because we already have it, and it began at a specific hour we can name. Scripture does not leave "in Christ" floating as a mood we work ourselves into. It ties the phrase to a moment:
As many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Galatians 3:27, ESV
From that hour, our standing before the Father is not a verdict handed down by whoever happened to be watching. It is settled, and it was settled by the only judge whose sight reaches all the way to the heart. That should change more than it usually does.
Identity performance attracts an audience, not companions. An audience applauds and moves on to the next performance; it was never going to stay.
Paul draws the same freedom out plainly in another letter:
So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God. 1 Corinthians 10:31, ESV
And not to the glory of the room. Give in secret the next time it costs you something.
Your Father who sees in secret will reward you. Matthew 6:4, ESV
He was watching before the room existed. He will still be watching after the room has emptied out and gone home.
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