Continued 👇🏾
👉🏾The Gospel of Matthew warns every believer:
✍🏾“Be careful not to do your alms before men, to be seen by them... When you do your alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing... and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.” Matthew 6:1–4
This command pierces straight to the heart of human vanity. Almsgiving is not performance; it is communion with God through mercy.
Every Christian act is meant to rise from faith. Without faith, even generosity turns hollow.
When one gives to be seen, the heart divides. Pride takes half, doubt takes the rest, and God receives nothing.
“We must give what we give with all our heart.”
True almsgiving is not measured by amount, but by purity of intention.
If the heart seeks human recognition, the gift becomes contaminated with self-interest.
✍🏾The Lord calls this kind of charity hypocrisy, because it hides pride behind kindness. The world praises such givers; heaven weeps for them.
✍🏾Some people parade their generosity before the cameras and crowds. They announce their gifts to the poor like a trumpet blast.
But Scripture warns:
“Do not blow a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do… that they may be praised by men.”
👉🏾This is not humility, Their reward ends where the applause stops.
👉🏾The Church teaches that public almsgiving done for praise is like pouring water into sand: it vanishes without fruit.
✍🏾Even those who sincerely wish to help the poor must examine the spirit behind their actions.
If their lives oppose the law of God, their giving becomes a contradiction one hand offers mercy while the other hand sins.
Such people “give to the poor with one hand while breaking the commandments with the other.”
Their act may relieve the body of the needy, but it cannot sanctify the giver.
True almsgiving flows from a life of faith, obedience, and repentance.
It is not a single act of kindness, but a habit of mercy rooted in the Gospel.
The faithful give quietly, pray constantly, and trust that God alone will see and reward.
Such giving does not destroy the giver through pride, but sanctifies both the giver and the receiver.
As the Fathers teach:
“He who gives with love, gives Christ Himself; and he who receives with gratitude, receives Christ.”
May the name of the Holy God be praised forever and ever in every tongue that He has created, today and always.
May the blessings of God's mother, the virgin, and the cross be upon us.
Amen.
© John's Repentance
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