A Saturday Devotional Series
By Melanie Mentzer

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.
2Therefore when thou doest thine alms, do not sound a trumpet before thee, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may
have glory of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward. 3But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth:
4That thine alms may be in secret: and thy Father which seeth in secret himself shall reward thee openly.” Matthew 6:1-4

I don't know about you guys, but it feels really nice to get noticed doesn't it? Sometimes I feel like I do so much, and no one notices, and I just

wish that I could get some credit for what I’ve done. Doing things all the time can be such a burn out, that we forget why we’re doing them in the first
place. This is not a good place to be. This is a great point when it comes to giving, because sometimes we can let our,”goody deeds”, get to our heads.
We talked about what it means to give. I used Jesus as an example of the ultimate gift. God gave His son Jesus. God doesn’t need anything
from us, yet He allows us to accept the gift of His son, and be His follower. We shouldn’t expect things from others in return of giving. Giving is ought to
be a gracious thing we do, not something to boast about. These verses are an awesome example of this.

Application:
1. What does He mean by not sounding a trumpet, in verse 2?
2. Jesus said, “They have their reward.” What is their reward?
3. What is Jesus trying to tell us within these verses?