Wednesday, November 8, 2023
Some
Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see
Jesus. They asked him, “Why do your
disciples disobey our age-old tradition? For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial
hand washing before they eat.” Jesus
replied, “And why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct
commandments of God? For instance, God says, ‘Honor your
father and mother,’ and ‘Anyone who speaks disrespectfully of father or
mother must be put to death.’ But you say it is all right
for people to say to their parents, ‘Sorry, I can’t help you. For I have vowed to give to God what I would
have given to you.’ In this way, you say they don’t need
to honor their parents. And so you cancel the word of God for the sake of
your own tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you,
for he wrote, ‘These people
honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship is a farce, for they teach
man-made ideas as commands from God.’” Matthew
15:1-9
If your first thought after reading
this exchange between Jesus and his detractors was how Jesus never answered
their question, you may have the same problem they did. The Pharisees and Scribes were nitpickers,
focusing like a laser-rocket on tiny details, rather than the larger picture. But that was not their main problem;
secretly, they were more committed to their agenda than getting at the truth. Jesus had been teaching people how to love
and honor God. The critical committee
was “concerned” the disciples might have a germ on their hands when eating. To the uninformed listener, or someone who bought-into
the Pharisees’ authority and credentials, it may have sounded like high-holy
righteousness. However, Jesus saw
through their deceit; they were trying to find enough fault to pick him and his
teachings apart. Jesus rebuked them by
showing their hypocrisy.
There is a particularly ludicrous
form of that deceptive hypocrisy in the culture of the 21st
century. It is the nit-picking (so-called)
“spirituality” of those who have never truly knelt at the foot of the cross and
experienced the forgiveness of Christ’s love.
Among the leaders of such are those who came close to the faith, but
turned and walked-away. Having a glimpse
of salvation’s glory (and cost), they must self-validate their empty decision
to reject the Lord of Glory by tearing his followers apart. I have seen it too many times to miss
this…the most vehement of those who would destroy the Kingdom’s grace in others
are those who would never kneel to the Lordship of He who came to forgive and
save. Like the Pharisees, they say
they serve the cause of good, but their hearts have fingers crossed behind
their backs.
For You Today
If you have recognized yourself in
this, from either side of being guilty, or the target of the guilty, there is
only one response…forgiveness. Offer
forgiveness freely if you’ve been attacked; pray for forgiveness if you’ve
blundered enough to be the attacker.
Living a life of eternal truth is to destroy every last bit of hypocrisy
that wants to eat your soul alive.
Anything less is a deceptive farce; it certainly isn’t worship!
There are about 2,600 devotional posts and 400 sermons
in the Rocky Road library.
Today’s title Image from Pixabay.com
Images without citation are in public domain or cited
via weblinks.
Unless noted, Scripture quoted from NLT©
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