Verse of the day: Matthew 15:8-9 This people draws near unto me with their mouth,
and honor me with their lips; but their heart is far from me. 9 But in
vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men.
There were other instances when Jesus confronted
the people of His time about their hypocrisy, and its affects. However, in this
final lesson about being aware of hypocrisy, I want to close out with this
verse that Jesus quoted, as written by the Prophet Isaiah (Is 29:13). Jesus, in
quoting this verse is defining for us what hypocrisy is. It is saying one thing
about what we believe, and giving God “lip service”, but living contrary to
that stated belief. Sadly, we do not realize how much damage we do to our
testimony for Christ and Christianity, in general, when we are hypocritical in
how we live our Christian life. Hypocrisy affects both our relationship with
God and our relationship with others. When an unsaved person hears us standing
up against what is wrong, and we go on our long dissertations about what others
should not be doing, we must be careful that we are not practicing those same
things we are condemning. We must take care to be the example of what doing
right is, and what it means to live righteously. Our morals should be measured
by what God says is morally right, and not what is morally acceptable by
society. Man and his acceptance or rejection of certain moral or immoral
practices is not our measure; Jesus is our Measure. We do not fall short of the
glory of anyone but God (Rom 3:23). The best way to avoid living hypocritically
before God and man is to we truly love Jesus and obey His commands (Jn 14:15). Too
many of us turn that into a unnecessarily difficult process. We complicate it
by adding our own preferences, personal convictions, and man-made traditions to
God’s truth. Simply put, if we just love God with all that we are and love our
neighbor as ourselves (Mk 12:29-31), we will have a better chance at succeeding
in representing Jesus without hypocrisy. When we treat others in the same way
we would like to be treated, we will be far less likely to mistreat, look down
on, or cheat, others (Lk 6:31). The bottom line is that our road to living a
life that is not stained with hypocrisy begins with our true worship of the
Lord. We must break down our facades, and stop worshiping God with just our
mouths. Our faith in the Lord must manifest itself in the way we behave, in our
attitude and actions towards others, motivated by and grounded in our true
faith in the Lord. When we allow the Holy Spirit to produce His fruit in our
lives, and we actually demonstrate that by the way we respond to people’s
rejection, persecution, and life situations in general, God will be able to use
us greatly to draw others unto Himself (Gal 5:16-26). Too many of us would
never admit that we are like the scribes and Pharisees, but when we are
hypocritical in our Christian living, we are no better and are just like them.
In Matthew 23:29ff, Jesus rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for being like
their fathers who killed the prophets sent to them by God to prepare them for
the coming of their Messiah. He warned them that they would be judged and
condemned, just like their fathers, because they followed in their footsteps by
rejecting and persecuting, not just Jesus, but those who would later bring the
Gospel message to them. So we, when we act in a way that pushes people away
from following God, and take the glory that belongs to Him for ourselves, and
cause people to speak ill of our faith and our Lord, we too are no better than
the hypocrites of the Lord’s days here on earth. Let us strive to live for the
Lord honestly and righteously so that we do not become laughing-stocks for our
faith, and so the world does not mock us for our inconsistencies in what we say
we believe and how we live. Let us avoid misrepresenting who our Lord is, and
put an end to our discouraging of our brothers and sisters in Christ when we
treat them wrongfully, look down on them simply because they do not follow our
personal convictions, or preferences, and causing division within the body
because of our lack of a true relationship with God; preferring to demonstrate
our religiosity for the sake of trying to make ourselves seem like we are
better Christians, and more blessed, than our brothers and sisters in Christ. I
do not believe I have to remind us that God hates division amongst His people
(Pro 6:16-19). Let us not be the cause of that division within God’s church
because of hypocrisy. Let us, instead, glorify God by being consistent in our words,
attitudes, actions, and deeds. Let us worship God by avoiding the teaching and insistence
that others live according to our man made rules and doctrines and exemplify
what it looks like to worship God by living for Him, in accordance to His
truth.
No comments:
Post a Comment