About an hour in, she started composing a sentence.
Nothing dramatic. Just a way of mentioning it that would not sound like mentioning it. If somebody asked whether she wanted a coffee, she could say no thanks, not today, in a particular tone, and then look mildly like a person who might be asked a follow up question.
She noticed herself doing it. That was the worst part. She was one hour into something she had decided to do privately, and she was already drafting the way it would get out.
She did not say it. She said no thanks in a completely normal voice and the moment passed and nobody knew anything. But the wanting stayed all day, and by the evening she had a low, familiar, very unpleasant feeling about herself, which she summed up in one word while she was cleaning her teeth.
Fraud.
That word did more damage that day than anything else that happened in it. And it was not true, and nobody was there to tell her so.
If you have drafted a sentence like that, come and sit down. I am not going to tell you off for the thing you have already told yourself off for.
The wanting is not the sin, and it is not evidence
First, the word. Fraud.
You are not a fraud. A fraud is a person doing something to be seen who pretends they are not. What you actually are is a person doing a private thing who noticed a wish to be seen, refused it, and then punished yourself for the wish, which is very nearly the opposite of fraud and considerably harder.
Everybody wants a witness. Not most people. Everybody. It is one of the plainest things about being human and it does not go away with maturity, it just gets quieter and better dressed.
You are not disqualified by wanting to be noticed, and God is not reassessing you over it. I am not saying that to be kind: the written word says he knoweth our frame, he remembereth that we are dust (Psalm 103:14), which is a Father who is entirely unsurprised by a person wanting somebody to see them, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes that land at the bathroom sink at eleven at night.
Notice what Jesus does with this, because it is not what you would expect.
He removed the audience without ever mentioning your motives
But thou, when thou fastest, anoint thine head, and wash thy face; that thou appear not unto men to fast, but unto thy Father which is in secret.Matthew 6:17 and 18
Read what He actually does there. He does not say get your heart right first. He does not say examine why you want to be seen. He does not run a diagnostic on the reader at all.
He removes the audience. Practically. Wash your face, sort your hair, look ordinary. He deals with the situation rather than lecturing the person, and He does it in a way that is kind: if the audience is gone, the wish has nothing to work with, and it settles on its own without anybody having to be shamed into a better motive.
You are not being asked to purify your reasons before God will meet you. The written word says the Lord looketh on the heart (1 Samuel 16:7), and He looks at it as a Father rather than as an inspector, and the Spirit is the one who makes that a warm sentence rather than a frightening one.
And this never means hiding
Here is the guard that has to go on this, and it is the most important paragraph on the page.
The privacy Jesus is teaching is about audience. It is not about concealment, and it never overrides anything sensible.
Telling your doctor is always right. Telling your husband or your wife is always right. Telling your parents, if you live with them, is always right. Telling whoever cooks the meals in your house is right and it is ordinary manners. None of that is a failure of Matthew 6, and if a version of this teaching has ever made you keep something from a person who needed to know it for your safety, that version was wrong and you can put it down today.
And plainly: some people must not go without food at all. If you live with diabetes, if you are pregnant or nursing, if you take medication, if you have ever had a hard relationship with food or eating, if you are underweight, unwell or frail, or if you are unsure, then speak to your doctor first and let their answer be the answer. There is no secrecy rule anywhere that outranks that, and there is no length, kind or plan of fasting on this page at all. That is not a rule bent for you, it is written that God accepts according to what a person has (2 Corinthians 8:12), and His Spirit is with you either way.
You have always been free to tell the people who look after you, and it was always allowed. Matthew 6:17 and 18 put the whole weight on a Father who sees rather than on anything being concealed from anybody, and the Holy Spirit is not asking you to keep a thing from a doctor or a husband.
If any of this has been going somewhere darker lately, call somebody real: your doctor, a counselor, or a crisis line, and the emergency services if you or anybody near you is in danger tonight.
So here is the turn, and it does not require better motives than the ones you have got.
Your Father sees you in the part nobody else does, and He is enough of an audience. The written word says thy Father, which seeth in secret, shall reward thee openly (Matthew 6:18), and He is called the one who sees rather than the one who assesses, and the Holy Spirit is the one who makes being seen by Him feel like company rather than surveillance.
The word you used at the sink is not God's word about you. You are seen by your Father, and it was already true about an hour in, before you had decided anything. Matthew 6:18 says He sees in secret and He said it twice in three verses, and the Holy Spirit is what makes that steady in a woman who has been calling herself a fraud. What He saw that day was a woman who wanted a witness and did not take one, which is not fraud in any language.
Declare this over yourself
Say these out loud, in your own voice, wherever you are. The standing to speak like this is yours in Christ and it is not issued on the strength of how clean your motives were this morning. Scripture is the ground under it, the Holy Spirit is what makes it living rather than merely resolved, and what God does in the part nobody sees is His, however He answers, and nothing on this page pretends to know.
- Wish that somebody would notice, you are ordinary and you are not proof that I am a fraud. Jesus dealt with this by taking the audience out of the room rather than by examining anybody's motives, and He said wash your face and look like an ordinary Thursday. In the name of Jesus I leave the sentence unsaid and I let you get bored.
- Word I used about myself at the sink, you are not God's word about me and you are not going to bed with me tonight. He knows my frame and remembers that I am dust (Psalm 103:14), and He looks on the heart as a Father and not as an inspector, and His Spirit is settling that in me instead of the verdict I handed down. I wanted a witness and I did not take one, and that is not fraud in any language.
- Father, You see in secret and You are enough of an audience for anything I will ever do. I thank You that You never once asked me to purify my reasons before You would come near me. Nobody is hearing about today from me, and You are the whole room.
Matthew 6:17
This message is free, and always will be. There is nothing to unlock, nothing to subscribe to, and nothing you owe for having received it.
