Journey Through The Secret Life of Saints

If there’s one thing that matters of the heart should highlight is it’s not about what’s going on outside, it’s what’s going on inside.

Teaching His disciples, Jesus was establishing how their identity was now to be found in God and that identity would mark them out as different to make a difference. This was underlined by just how much the issue was about matters of the heart. It was never about practising things on the surface without the heart reflecting the life of God within.

In this section of His teaching, Jesus had already hinted at the need for His disciples to have a standard of life markedly different from the religious rulers of the day. He would then go and make it even ore apparent what the difference should be when it came to key practices in the life of the believer.

Beware of practising 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. (Matthew 6:1)

Jesus is not about to oppose practising righteousness in public. He is addressing a crucial matter of the heart – what’s the driving motive behind the practise. Often it would appear to be better if these practises were done in secret. The issue here, however, is not about secrecy or privacy for the sake of it. The issue here is that cultivating the secret life of saints is a journey of recognising primarily that what is done is for God. This is a journey of doing it to be seen primarily by God because the heart desires to be pleasing primarily to God.

The desire for cultivating a secret life of saints is a desire to develop an intimacy with God expressed through giving, praying and fasting in such a way that they are genuine spiritual disciplines. Activities done in a one-to-one relationship with the God who defines and shapes all of life.

Intimacy is the goal, faithfulness is the measure, the matter of the heart determines the outcome. Do we desire a deep and profound response from the Creator of the universe, or the momentary and empty observation of onlookers?

To gain the better outcome requires us to embark on the journey through the secret life of saints.

(Photo by Bryan Rodriguez on Unsplash)

For His Name’s Sake

Shalom

C. L. J. Dryden