Every Christian wants to do good. He knows that he is not saved by his good deeds, but he knows also that good deeds will follow his salvation and be the practical proof that it is real. And he knows that he will someday stand before the judgment seat of Christ to receive the consequences of deeds done in the body, whether they be good or evil.
To be good a deed must pass three tests: What? Why? and How? What we do is, of course, important. There are deeds that are wrong in themselves; nothing can make them right and no circumstances can excuse them. Such we will pass by for the moment and give our attention to those acts that are considered good without question by the generality of mankind.
At the risk of being thought repetitious I’ll say again that in religion and morals motive comes very near to being everything. It is not what a man does only but why he does it that determines the moral quality of the deed. A deed which on the surface may be good, if done for a selfish reason is actually evil. And since we cannot often penetrate to the springs of human conduct we cannot always be sure whether the deeds of others are good or bad. Charity dictates that we give every man the advantage of the doubt, but God alone knows the facts. I trust that most of us serve God and our fellow men from motives that will stand the test of Why?
But there is another factor about which I find it impossible to be wholly optimistic. It is how our good deeds are done; that is, the spirit in which we do them. I think it is possible to pass the first two tests and fail the third dismally.
Above all persons the Christian should be gracious and self-effacing. His alms should be given in private and as unostentatiously as possible. He should avoid making the recipient feel embarrassed. A loan may be made, for instance, in such a manner that the one who receives it may be humiliated and hurt so deeply that the later repayment of the loan will not square the transaction. He will feel cheap and inferior for a long time simply because the loan was made in a wrong spirit.
A little poem says in few words what I have in mind:
Inglorious
And a shame to see,
Is a favor done
Ungraciously.
I am afraid there are a great many favors done so ungraciously as to be no favors at all but actual injuries to the persons receiving them. Most of us at some time have had the painful experience of being made to feel small by a favor done with a superior air or a tolerant smile. We Christians should study and pray for the grace of casualness when helping a friend. I have known a few persons who have been able to do a favor in such a way as to create the feeling that they themselves were being favored. Such an art is as rare as it is beautiful. We should cultivate it more carefully.
It is scarcely necessary to point out that a contribution made grudgingly will not be accepted by the Lord. A sour gift is no gift at all even if it is given to the poor or to foreign missions. Religious work done under protest might as well be left undone. It is not good in fact, however excellent it may seem to be.
The sum of the matter is that our works, to be good, must have our hearts in them. They must be the works of the Spirit, done in the Spirit. Short of this they are but wood, hay and stubble.
( Article taken from The Price of Neglect, Chapter 15 )