Hypocrite!

Woe to you, you hypocrite!

Strong words from our savior here in the gospel of Matthew.

Have you ever been called a hypocrite?  I have.  It is not a good feeling knowing someone knows you so well that the understand that you think one way, but act contrary to that. That is a hypocrite.  I believe it hurts worst when you know it is true.

But worst than being called a hypocrite by someone, one of your friends, is knowing your self that you are a hypocrite…

You know how to act and what to think as a disciple of Jesus. You know what you should do and what you shouldn’t do, yet there you are doing the very thing that you shouldn’t do…

It is what Jesus says to the Pharisees and scribes here, “Wash the inside of the cup, so that the outside may also become clean.” Make the inside clean and the outside will follow. Do not be a whitewashed tomb, beautiful to behold, yet dead on the inside.

All of us will always be hypocrites; we will all say one thing and do another. We will all think bad thoughts about our neighbors. That is our humanness, and we can not get out of that until Jesus returns again. Yet we can be whole in Him and see ourselves and others through the eyes of Jesus.

Brother, help me to see others as you see them. To not put up fancy things and follow all of the rules while I neglect the last, lost, least or little. Help me to be like you, Jesus. Amen.