Daily Devotional
"Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them."
Matthew 6:1
Many of us read this passage and think, I would never literally blow a trumpet. That may be true. But Jesus is naming a hunger that does not always need a public square to feed it. Some of us are performing for an internal audience. We do good things so that we can tell ourselves we are decent people, so that we can quietly reassure ourselves that God must be pleased with us today. The applause is silent, but it is still applause, and we still keep score.
Dane Ortlund describes this in Gentle and Lowly as a “legal spirit,” a subtle tendency to seek to leverage God’s favor with our behavior. He calls it an entire psychological substructure of relational leveraging, fear, stuffing, scorekeeping, and neurotic controlling. He says when you trace it down to its root, you do not find childhood difficulties or trauma. You find a gospel deficit. The internal performer is a person who has not yet rested in the love of the Father given freely in Christ.
Grace Hammond, in her treatment of the medieval vice of pride, calls pride “Satan’s special wine,” because under its influence we take credit even for our religious practices and use them to prop ourselves up against the gravity of our need. She says pride can instrumentalize anything, including holiness. This is the corruption. Generosity may look like devotion to others, but if you track every gift, if you feel a quiet glow whenever you remember it, your left hand has been watching your right hand the entire time.
Today's Challenge
When was the last time you did something good and no one else knew? How did you talk to yourself about it afterward? Are you most tempted to leverage God's favor through your performance when you feel unloved, unseen, or insecure? What is the gospel saying to that part of your heart?
Prayer
Father, I confess that even when no one else is watching, I am often still performing. I have tried to leverage your favor with my behavior, and I have used my devotion to soothe my insecurity. Forgive me. Anchor me again in the gospel. Remind me that my place at your table was settled by Christ, not by me. Let my lavish heart relax as your lavish heart comes home to me. In Jesus' name, Amen.
