Practicing Righteousness in 3 Ways: Alms, Prayer, and Fasting

The King James Version (KJV) is mostly used in these lessons. Click here to access the KJV online.

In Matthew 6:1, Yahushua says, "Take heed that ye do not your alms before men, to be seen of them: otherwise ye have no reward of your Father which is in heaven."

Just dealing with a haughty, prideful attitude, where you just do something because you want somebody else to see you and think that you're a spiritual person. He says you don't practice righteousness that way, you don't do it like that. We shouldn't be showy or flashy or prideful. In Matthew 6, from verse 1 all the way to verse 16, He explains the practicing of righteousness in three ways. Not that there are not other ways to practice righteousness but he explains it specifically in three ways. The three ways are, one, giving to the poor. He deals with that in verses one through four. Then he deals with [2] prayer in verses five through 15. Then he deals with [3] fasting in verses 16 through 18. These are three things that every believer should be doing regularly. If you do these things you will grow in the spirit. If you neglect these things you will shrink. In doing each of these your intent should never be to desire the applause or the praise of people. You do them because you desire to be applauded or praised by your heavenly father and that's okay.

Now, sometimes our righteousness will be seen by people.

Matthew chapter 5 said - let your light shine among men so that others may see your good works and glorify your father in heaven. So if you practice righteousness long enough, somebody's going to see it and it's going to be a good influence. It is compared to salt and light and those are good things in the way we influence the world. But that should never be the reason that we practice righteousness. We should never have a prideful attitude where we just want somebody to see us. A lot of the Pharisees were like that - they looked the part but they really weren't the part. So there's a difference between being seen and desiring to be seen.