The Bible leaves us in no doubt that God is awesomely powerful.  It is foolish to fight against Him or to incur His wrath.  God's judgement on sin is properly terrifying, as we can see by the ten plagues that punished the rebellious Egyptian Pharaoh, and other plagues that destroyed rebellious Israelites (Amos 4:10).  But God is merciful (Romans 9:14-15).  That is His nature – patiently waiting and delaying judgement so that He might have mercy on those who repent (2 Peter 3:9).

God is not mean (Hebrews 6:10).  He does not abuse His servants nor ill-treat His friends.  He rewards those who give service, time, labour, money, possessions and worship in His Name (Matthew 19:29).  But God never defines a particular reward for individual acts of sacrificial giving.  Perhaps that is because we are not employed by Him on a contract; so we are never given the luxury of predicting what we get for what we give.  Neither are we to compare our reward with anybody else's.  Nor are we allowed to know when or how God's reward will arrive - in time or eternity.  

When Jesus used the word 'hypocrite', everybody knew He was referring to actors.  In the Greek theatrical tradition of Jesus' day, the most common plays were tragedies in which the misfortunes of the main character stemmed from unrealised bad personality traits.  The audience could see the tragedy developing although the character remained oblivious to his own faults.  The word itself means ‘speaking from underneath a mask’.  Not only could the audience not see the face of the actor, but the mask also prevented proper vision.

The Greek word used here for 'Lord' refers to supremacy.  A 'Lord' was an owner of property and the master of people, somebody who had the right to decide and control.  Used as a title, 'Lord' recognised the person as being in authority and gave a solemn responsibility to serve and obey.  The Bible writers also use 'Lord' as a name for God (Acts 2:47), which greatly heightens our obligation to do what He says today.