Beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven. (Matthew 6:1)
"It suggests that we can lose our reward, due to impure motives. If we want to be seen, recognized and honored by men in the doing, we therefore lose the corresponding eternal reward. It is the hope of that reward that will enable us to perform a work, even when people do not acknowledge it, or are not grateful for it. This is a complete reversal of the incentives that most men require in this life. They do because they want to be seen of men, recognized, and celebrated.
Blessed are you when men cast insults at you, and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely, on account of Me. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward in heaven is great, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you. (Matthew 5:11”“12)
The joy of it is experienced now, in the moment of the shame and rejection. That is a living faith, because you anticipate the reward in such a way that it is a present factor in your joy. If our faith does not eventuate in joy in the moment that we suffer disgrace, reproach and rejection, for Christ’s sake, then we have not the true faith. If we have just an academic faith or a doctrinal thing, then we will be quite glum.
The anticipation of the future thing, that is both enduring and eternal, and a reward that does not fade away, does not rust, does not corrupt, and cannot be stolen, is designed by God to be the most powerful, cogent motive for our present service. God intends it to be an enormous factor in our present overcoming life. This was a factor for Moses in his own overcoming, and his own separation from Egypt:
By faith Moses, when he had grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh’s daughter; choosing rather to endure ill-treatment with the people of God, than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin; considering the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures of Egypt; for he was looking to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24”“26)
Paul said that we would all stand at the judgment seat of Christ, not to determine the issue of our salvation, but to determine the issue of our reward. It is there that our works are tested to see whether they can survive the fire of God’s evaluation and judgment. When we say the phrase ‘good works,’ we automatically recoil, because we think that somehow it is threatening the gospel of grace. Salvation is a gift of God by grace, but what we do with the grace, having obtained it as a gift, determines our eternal place and eternal reward. Works is only a bad word when we think that we can labor for our salvation. Something should come from our faith, something visible, something productive, and this is what God weighs, evaluates and rewards in the Day of His coming."