I was struck by a short passage I read sometime ago in Luke 14: 12 – 14; well I actually read from verse 7 to 14 but it was the last 3 verses that struck me. The entire passage was about humility and hospitality. Jesus attended a feast where he made some observations and gave some important lessons to the guests and the host. The last 3 verses, reproduced below, are about the advice he gave to the host:

Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a lunch or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors—for they will invite you back, and in this way you will be paid for what you did. When you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind; and you will be blessed, because they are not able to pay you back. God will repay you on the day the good people rise from death.” (Good News Bible)

There are times when we may have done good deeds and been paid back in our life time. Yes, sometimes things work out that way. But what I learned here reinforced the idea that I ought to do good and not look forward to receiving my reward here on earth. As followers of Jesus Christ we ought to do good because it pleases our Lord and King. What pleases our Lord is good. Yes, it may happen that we will receive goodness or kindness or some other blessing as a payback from those whom we are good to or even from others to whom we have not done good to. But we must do good because it pleases our Father in Heaven, our King, our Savior and our Lord.