Matthew 6
6
Giving to the Needy
1 “Beware of #
1 John 2:29 practicing your righteousness before other people in order # ver. 16; ch. 23:5 to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.
2 # [1 Cor. 13:3] “Thus, when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may #
John 5:44 be praised by others. Truly, I say to you, they have #
Luke 6:24
received their reward. 3But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, 4so that your giving may be in secret. #ver. 6, 18And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
The Lord’s Prayer
5 “And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love #
Mark 11:25; Luke 18:11 to stand and pray in the synagogues and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. # ver. 2, 16 Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 6But when you pray, #2 Kgs. 4:33; Isa. 26:20 go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. #ver. 4, 18And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
7 “And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as # ver. 32; ch. 5:47 the Gentiles do, for #
1 Kgs. 18:26 they think that they will be heard #
Prov. 10:19; Eccles. 5:2 for their many words. 8Do not be like them, #ver. 32for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. 9#For ver. 9-13, [Luke 11:2-4] Pray then like this:
# ver. 1 “Our Father in heaven,
#
Isa. 29:23; [Luke 1:49; 1 Pet. 3:15] hallowed be #
John 17:6
your name. # 6:9 Or Let your name be kept holy, or Let your name be treated with reverence
10 # [ch. 3:2; 4:17] Your kingdom come,
# ch. 26:42; Luke 22:42; Acts 21:14; [ch. 12:50; Heb. 13:21] your will be done,#6:10 Or Let your kingdom come, let your will be done
#
Ps. 103:20, 21; Dan. 4:35 on earth as it is in heaven.
11 #
Prov. 30:8 Give us # [ver. 34] this day our daily bread, # 6:11 Or our bread for tomorrow
12 and forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And # ch. 26:41; Mark 14:38; Luke 22:40, 46; [1 Cor. 10:13] lead us not into temptation,
but #
John 17:15; 2 Thess. 3:3; [2 Tim. 4:18] deliver us from # See ch. 13:19 evil. # 6:13 Or the evil one ; some manuscripts add For yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory, forever. Amen
14 #
Mark 11:25; Luke 6:37; Eph. 4:32; Col. 3:13 For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, 15#ch. 18:35; See James 2:13but if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.
Fasting
16 “And #
Isa. 58:5 when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. # ver. 2, 5 Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. 17But when you fast, #Ruth 3:3; 2 Sam. 12:20anoint your head and wash your face, 18that your fasting may not be seen by others but by your Father who is in secret. #ver. 4, 6And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.
Lay Up Treasures in Heaven
19 # ch. 19:21; Luke 12:21, 33, 34; 18:22; 1 Tim. 6:9, 10, 17-19; Heb. 13:5 “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where #
James 5:2, 3 moth and rust # 6:19 Or worm ; also verse 20 destroy and where thieves #ch. 24:43break in and steal, 20#[See ver. 19 above]but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. 21For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
22 #
Luke 11:34, 35 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, 23#[See ver. 22 above] but if #ch. 20:15; Deut. 15:9; Prov. 28:22your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!
24 #
Luke 16:13; [Rom. 6:16; James 4:4] “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and #
Luke 16:9, 11, 13 money. # 6:24 Greek mammon, a Semitic word for money or possessions
Do Not Be Anxious
25 # For ver. 25-33, see Luke 12:22-31 “Therefore I tell you, # ver. 27, 28, 31, 34; ch. 10:19; 13:22 (Gk.); 1 Cor. 7:32 (Gk.); Phil. 4:6; 1 Pet. 5:7 do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26#[Job 38:41; Ps. 147:9] Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. #ch. 10:31Are you not of more value than they? 27And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his #Luke 2:52span of life?#6:27 Or a single cubit to his stature; a cubit was about 18 inches or 45 centimeters 28And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, 29yet I tell you, #1 Kgs. 10:4-7even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, #ch. 8:26; 14:31; 16:8; [ch. 17:20]O you of little faith? 31Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ 32For #ver. 7 the Gentiles seek after all these things, and #ver. 8your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. 33But #[ch. 5:6, 20] seek first #ver. 10 the kingdom of God and his righteousness, #[1 Kgs. 3:11-14; Mark 10:29, 30; 1 Tim. 4:8; 1 Pet. 3:9]and all these things will be added to you.
34 # [James 4:13, 14] “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
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Matthew 6
6
Don’t do things just to get people to think you are good
1Jesus kept on teaching the people. He said, “If you only do good things so that people will see you and think you are good, God will not do good to you. Instead, you have to do good things and keep them secret. Then your father in heaven will do good things for you.#Matthew 23:5
2You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. So whenever they give something to help a poor person, they do it in front of the meeting house or on a busy street, so that people will see it and say that they are good. But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them. 3Whenever you give something to help somebody, don’t tell anyone else about it, not even your best friend. 4Keep it a secret. You know, God, your father, always sees what you do in secret, and he will be properly good to you for doing that.”
Pray the right way
5Jesus said, “Don’t pray like those people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. They like to stand up and pray in the meeting houses and on the busy street corners, so that lots of people can see them praying. They want to hear people say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that.”#Luke 18:10-14
6And Jesus said, “I’ll tell you the right way to pray. Go away from other people to a place where you can be alone, like go into a little room in your house and close the door. There you can pray to God, your father. He is in that secret place. And he sees what you do. He will listen to you, and he will be properly good to you for respecting him.
7And when you pray, don’t keep on talking on and on, with lots of words that don’t mean anything. People that don’t know God, they do that. They think that if they talk a lot, God will hear them. But they are wrong. 8Don’t be like them. God, your father, knows what you need already, even before you ask him.
9So pray like this,
‘God, our father, you live in heaven.
We want everyone to respect you.
10We want you to be everyone’s boss.
We want everyone in the world to do what you want,
just like everyone in heaven does what you want.
11Please give us the food that we need each day.
12Please don’t punish us for the bad things that we did,
just like we don’t do payback to the people that did bad things to us.
13Don’t let anything push us to do bad things.
And keep us safe from the devil, the boss over the bad spirits.’ ”
14Then Jesus said, “If you don’t do payback to other people for the bad things they do to you, God, your father in heaven, will not do payback to you for the bad things you do. 15But if you do payback to other people, your father will do payback to you. He will punish you for the bad things you do.”#Mark 11:25-26
Don’t stop eating just to get people to think you are good
16Jesus kept on teaching the people. Some of those people used to stop eating for a while, so they can think about God and respect him. Jesus said, “Whenever you stop eating for a while, make sure you look the same as you always look. You know, there are some people that want everyone to think they are good, even though they are not good. Whenever they stop eating food to respect God, they want everyone to know what they are doing, so they let their faces get dirty, and they try to look sad. They want people to say, ‘That’s a good person.’ But listen, that is all those people will get. God will not give them anything good for doing that. Don’t be like them. 17When you stop eating for God, just be normal and look the same as you always look. Wash your face and comb your hair. 18Then nobody will know that you have stopped eating. But God your father knows. Nobody can see him, but he sees everything you do. He will see what you do in a secret way, and he will be properly good to you for it.”
Keep your good things in heaven
19-20Jesus said, “If you have a lot of money and other good things here in this world, don’t try to keep them all for yourself. No. But give them away to people that need them. When you do that, it’s like you give them to God, and he will keep them for you in heaven. You see, here in this world you might lose them. There are things here that might eat them, like grubs or white ants. Or your good things might go rusty. Or somebody might steal them. But nothing will eat them in heaven, and they will not go rusty in heaven, and nobody there will steal them.#James 5:2-3 21You see, you will always think about the place where you keep your money and your good things. If they are here in this world, you will only live for the things of this world. But if you give them to God in heaven, then you will live for God.”
God can shine his light for you
22Then Jesus told them this picture story. He said, “Your eyes are like lights for your body. They show you where to go. If you always want to look at good things, then you will think about good things, and you will live God’s way. It will be like God is shining his light for you, to help you live his way. 23But if you always want to look at bad things, then you will think about bad things, and you will be spiritually blind, and you will not live God’s way. It will be like you are living in the dark. And if you are spiritually blind, with no light from God, it will be really bad for you.”
You can’t work for both God and money
24And Jesus told them another picture story. He said, “You can’t work for 2 bosses at the same time. If you try to do that, then you will only like one boss, and you will always work properly for him. But you will not like the other boss, and you will never work properly for him. You see, you can’t have God as your boss, and money as your boss, both at the same time.”
Trust God, and don’t worry about the things you need
25Jesus said, “So I’m telling you, even though you need some things to stay alive, don’t worry about them. Don’t worry about what you will eat or drink. Don’t worry about the clothes you will wear. Your life is more important than food, and your body is more important than clothes. 26Think about the birds. They don’t put seeds into the ground to grow a garden, to get their food from it. And they don’t build sheds to keep their food in. But God, your father, gives them food anyway. And you are much more special to God than birds, so you can trust him to give you the food you need.
27And don’t worry about how long you will live, or when you will die. No matter how much you worry about it, you will not live any longer, not even one day longer.
28-29And don’t worry about your clothes. Listen. You know the story about Solomon. He was a very rich man, and he lived a long time ago. He wore very pretty clothes. Well, think about the wild flowers in the bush. They don’t work hard to get clothes for themselves. But those wild flowers are more pretty than Solomon’s clothes.#1 Kings 10:4-7; 2 Chronicles 9:3-6 30You see, we might think the grass and the wild flowers are rubbish, and anybody might burn them up at any time. But God makes them very pretty anyway. So God will give you the clothes you need. You have to trust God properly, and he will take care of you.
31So don’t keep on asking yourself, ‘Where will I get my food? And where will I get my drink? And where will I get clothes to wear?’ 32Listen, God is your father in heaven, and he knows that you need these things. People that don’t know God are always worrying about those things, but you shouldn’t worry about them. 33Think, instead, about the things that are good for God’s family, and try to do the good things that God wants you to do. Then God will give you all those other things that you need. 34So don’t worry about how to get what you will need tomorrow. Each day has enough problems of its own. When tomorrow comes, then you can think about those things.”
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