Open or Secret Righteousness?

Mt 5:16 "Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

Mt 6:1 "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.

I love meditating on the Sermon on the Mount. Just think...it's the most famous sermon in the history of the entire world and...it was delivered by none other than the Prince of Life Himself, our Master Jesus. It's actually very brief and it's message penetrates to the core of the human heart and condition.

Have you ever noticed the apparent contradiction of the above two statements that are both a part of this amazing sermon? Have you ever wrestled with obeying them simultaneously? Maybe it's just the way my brain works! Anyway, I think that the contradiction is merely superficial in nature. I think they can be synthesized by applying the following concepts.

1. Beneath (on a "subterranean" level) any outward display or demonstration of our faith through "good works" (which are a natural outflow of the reality of life of Jesus within us), is a genuine interactive friendship in real-time with the Trinity in the innermost chambers of our hearts--a "secret place", if you will.

2. I believe that Peter was referring to this secret aspect of our being and relationship with God when he used the phrase, the "hidden person of the heart" (1 Pet 3:4). It is in this hidden realm where proper intentions to do good are conceived and formed in partnership with the Holy Spirit.

3. So as we determine to do some act of righteousness, we do not consider if people will notice it. We may even have the ability to keep them from knowing the source of the good--and that might be an appropriate course of action--depending on the nature of the act. We essentially do the good thing, whatever it may be, to please our Father and not "in order to be seen" by people.

4. The beautiful irony is, that when we live this way, we will not ultimately be able to hide the "light" of the good we do and...we should not be ashamed of the radiance of Christ that will inevitably shine in, around and through us. It is by this inside/out process that we allow our light to shine before men "in such a way" that they will glorify our heavenly Father...instead of them glorifying us or, even worse, as happens too often in the realm of toxic religion...us glorifying ourselves!