Covert Ministry

But when thou doest alms, let not thy left hand know what thy right hand doeth: (Matthew 6:3)

I want us to look at Mordecai to understand this verse.

I do not think many believers appreciate that the depths of God’s revelation in His word is as deep and unfathomable as God is.

We can mine the truths from God’s word and never exhaust them.

But I want us to go to the Old Testament to get the clearest understanding of what Christ meant when He gave the instruction in this verse.

And we will look at two things that Mordecai did.

He raised Esther as his daughter when she became an orphan.

Imagine he ordered Esther to never mention that fact!

To imagine that even when he was pleading with her to go to the king he never even once reminded her of the fact that he raised her. He simply used other arguments.

He then saved the king’s life from an assassination.

Yet from the reading of the book it appears that he also ‘ordered’ that what he did is never mentioned anywhere. But God ensured that it was recorded.

Otherwise imagine with me that that fact had gone out.

Do you think that he could have continued being just a gate keeper? Do you even imagine Haman imagining about scheming about him? Do you think the king could have allowed him lie wasting at the gate?

Had his intervention for the king become public, the people at the gate would have been the ones prostrating before him, and not through the king’s order.

Haman could have been told something like this when his fellow gatekeepers were reporting his defiance.

‘This guy refuses to bow before you. But he is the one who saved the king from an assassination.’

Do you think Haman could have even thought of laying a hand on him?

Yet this great man buried his good deeds, refusing to exhume them even when his life was in danger yet doing so would have given him immediate relief.

Such giving is the product of great faith in God. It is the product of someone whose walk with God is not subject to any external prompting.

Though Joseph was as great, you remember him telling the cupbearer to remember him to pharaoh, though for God’s purposes to succeed the guy forgot until the right time came.

But Mordecai left the right time completely in God’s hands through his acts.

No wonder the king was shocked when he discovered that the inconspicuous character minding his gate had saved his life, even worse, that he had received nothing in exchange. He was also shocked to later learn that he was his de facto father-in-law.

That is why he was elevated so highly after what he had concealed became public.

Even his fellow gatekeepers looked at him with awe after knowing the kind of person they had been treating as one of them.

Reminds me of this verse

Humble yourselves therefore under the mighty hand of God, that he may exalt you in due time: (1Peter 5:6)

I can only humble myself when I am completely surrendered to the authority I am submitting to.

That is how Mordecai was.

He gave and gave and completely forgot. Because he had actually given as his worship to the God he knew.

That is how Christ expects us to give, not only of our resources, but of ourselves as well.

Otherwise our giving will fall way below the threshold He can accept.

Further

I want us to look at the application and implications of giving like Mordecai did. That is giving and CHOOSING to completely forget it.

We have Mordecai and Barnabas as examples, one in the OT and the other in the New.

I have used the word choosing intentionally. And it is because it is impossible for the left hand not to know what the right is doing since both are part of the same body.

It is also akin to what God did for our justification.

He paid for our sins and completely forgets them when we choose to accept that sacrifice.

That does not mean He deletes our past or formats the hard disk that is our past.

He simply starts with us afresh from the point at which we accept that sacrifice.

Otherwise tell me why the Bible says that we will give an account of ourselves before God. Or that we will give an account of every idle word we speak.

God chooses to treat us as if we never sinned due to the fact that Jesus paid for our sins.

And like I always like us to never forget, free does not mean without cost. It simply means that somebody else bore the cost of what we are enjoying for free.

Again, look at verses like these

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. (Hebrews 10: 26, 27)

Playing with grace means that we are trashing the sacrifice that paid for the salvation we received free. Meaning that we have disqualified ourselves from the payment of our redemption.

This in effect means that our relationship with God is reset to the point at which we were before accepting that sacrifice, only that this time we have no option of accessing that forgiveness, more like it happened with the evil one.

Mordecai’s giving is a giving that has zero expectation of reward. It is a complete release of the gift.

One does not hold the recipient of the gift to account for its reception.

And that is why the word choosing is so significant.

Human nature says that nothing is free. Someone must return the hand (a direct translation from Kiswahili) to be a receiver, and that from the giver.

But grace says otherwise.

What are the rewards of such giving? I know someone is wondering.

It releases the giver to focus on their assignment without distractions.

You see, had Mordecai not released his giving, he could have very easily sunk to depression with disappointment.

He could have thought something like this.

Imagine this girl I raised and she is giving reasons instead of jumping to my defence! Or, how can this king whose life I saved not concerned to even know who saved his life?

Releasing the gift released him to fight for the whole nation of Israel instead on focusing on his self preservation. It allowed him to rally the whole nation to a common cause, something he could not have done had he focused on an expectation of reward for his giving.

Releasing a gift thus simply means that one is releasing it to God and allowing God to use it as He wills.