Matthew 23:23-32 23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. 24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.
25 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.
27 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.
29 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You build tombs for the prophets and decorate the graves of the righteous. 30 And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
Jer Swigart
The Open Door Community Church
Observation: Father, I experience you reorienting me toward You, Your longing for me, and Your longing for this world. I hear you saying, “Your life being defined by compassion and justice is more important to Me than your life being defined by being right.” I hear you encouraging me to roll up my sleeves and to engage in the beautiful mess of weaving heaven and earth back together again rather than encouraging me to pursue a sanitized, equational way of life.
Action: Today, rather than walking away from what is broken and/or inconvenient in the spaces of my home, neighborhood, or vocational space, I am going to walk toward it, meet the people inside of it, and discover how I can roll up my sleeves to and contend for their flourishing.
OBSERVATION: I hear God simply saying, “Be real.” There is an axiom we toss around that says, “People don’t need perfect examples, they need living ones.” I think that is it for me as I read this. I don’t need to be someone I’m not… and I don’t need to put on some false front. I just need to be me in all my simultaneously saint and sinner glory.
ACTION: I will confess openly my shortcomings, rather than burying them for the sake of maintaining the illusion I’ve got it all together.
Love that Axiom Brian – thanks for tossing it to us in the West Coast!
OBSERVATION: Our self-condition is painfully clear in this reading. No amount of religious doing can change the being that we are on the inside. What a glorious hope we have in Jesus -to be made new creations by faith in Him, and to live in and through him, free from the burden of such sin.
ACTION: I will thank God today and forever for my salvation. I will praise him and worship him. I will listen to and follow the voice of his holy and life-giving spirit.
Today God gives me a Word that calls me back to Him–showing me my true attitude and belief that life is all about me. I praise Him for His mercy, delivered by His grace upon my repentance, and I thank Him for the Spirit to believe Him for a change of heart and direction.
Only Jesus could weave justice, mercy and faithfulness into the same thought. I can think of them as separate components, even try to apply them separately to different relationships.
Today, I will ask Him to let me experience a relationship where all three, justice, mercy, faithfulness, are mixed as one. This will be new to me, but not to the Ancient One.
A great reminder of the importance of my inner work. I hear the Lord saying to me to cultivate the condition of my heart that I might genuinely be about the Fathers work.
We cannot pretend to God. He knows us inside and out. I pray that I will always focus on my relationship with Him and a sincere desire to please Him in all of my existence.
Betty! Look at you! You did it! Welcome
Betty’s always on it 😉
Observation: Oh Father it is soooo much easier to just tithe and not tend to the grace matters – the heart matters – Justice – Mercy – Faithfulness. I hear You saying You want engaged relationship not just routine doing good stuff, that my doing should flow from Your loving me.
Action: I will be faithful today not because I should, but because you have shown me Your faithfulness. I will act in Justice because I am so aware you have contended with the enemy to bring justice in my life and the life of many of my friends experiencing the injustice in life. I will be generous in mercy toward those I care about because they are often the one where I am least merciful and You who knows me best are generous toward me in mercy.
I am encouraged by all the good comments this morning. It helps to know I’m in good company as I struggle with the difference between keeping the rules, and keeping the faith. Please, Lord, help me to keep my focus on You, and the people You love (everyone), and be available as I go through the day.
I am often so caught up in my “religious activity” that I might not notice the needs of those I pass by. Get my attention, Father, and keep it. Let me be that “living example” that Brian mentioned.
Observation: ‘Woe to you, you hypocrites!’ Whoa, that’s not me is it? Sometimes it is–I find it easier to curse the tree (judge the person) rather than fertilize the soil (be merciful and be mindful of their struggles).
Action: Pray for the person more, judge the behavior less (or better yet not at all).
Action: I will see to it that you stand for compassion, justice & mercy rather than our human plans or promises. You knew before I did what problems would arise and how we should deal with them. I am grateful for your faithfulness today.
I am struck by these verse: And you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ 31 So you testify against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Go ahead, then, and complete what your ancestors started!
I had not remembered it being there.
I think God is speaking to me about looking at the past and seeing the mistakes made — mine and others — and thinking I wouldn’t do that or I wouldn’t do that again. It’s so easy to see and judge what was done in the past. But if I don’t look beyond the surface of what’s going on around me now, it’s not so hard to repeat the mistakes. The outside of anything is not the whole, and the inside of almost everything is what really matters.
Action: I will give a full-spectrum look to things/situations/people — including myself and my actions and reactions — objectively. I do not have to repeat the mistakes of my ancestors, but I have to be changed on the inside.
“You blind guides!” “Blind pharisee!”
I hear the Lord cautioning me to look to where I might be leading blindly. Where I might be blindly legalistic.
Today I will lead with both eyes on Jesus. Love His people.
Lord help me to love and serve like Jesus.
Observation: It’s easy for me to be an either/or person. God calls us to live in the both/and. We recoil at being Pharisees, but even Jesus tells them not to neglect the tithing they’re already doing.
Action: Today I will put the best construction on both sides of the story, giving the benefit of the doubt to both those who agree with me and those who do not.
Observation: Father, I hear you saying I need to crucify my efforts to be good enough, and to allow your grace to overcome my life from the inside out.
Action: I will go to sleep tonight trusting that what Christ has done on the cross is sufficient to cause my life to change.
Sooo….Jesus doesn’t like a hypocrite. That seems pretty clear. He’s telling us we focus on the unimportant (the gnat vs. the camel) and we’re too busy keeping up appearances (cleaning the outside of the cup). God calls us to be honest. Even if we’re not perfect?? Yes. Even then. Especially then.
Prayer: Jesus, you love me, imperfections and all. Remind me that I don’t have all the answers, I am not always right, and I am full of flaws. Also remind me that you’re right there beside me to guide my steps (and my mis-steps) along the way. Hold my hand as I stumble through life and give me courage to be real and faithful to You. Amen.