There's a Pharisee in all of us

The Pharisees must have been causing a great lot of trouble for Jesus to take a whole chapter just telling them off ("Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!").

Hypocrisy. He said this about 8 times in this chapter alone. Our pastors say that when words are repeated a lot in the Bible, it means there is a lot of emphasis put on it. 

Hypocrisy. One of the worst, if not the worst thing to do. It would be easier to find someone who is completely lost than one who claims not to be lost at all and knows it all, but lives none of it, but claims to. Or maybe we work around it by choosing only the parts of the Bible that are convenient and comforting. 

Hypocrisy. Verses that talk about God being forgiving, loving, caring, gentle, full of promises to make our lives wonderful. Ignoring everything else that requires obedience, sacrifice, losing our lives to gain it, humility and just simply obeying God. How do I know these tactics? Cause I did them myself. I grew up in Sunday School. "Been there, done that" was one of my favorite lines. 

I deserved it. All that Jesus said in Matthew 23. 

There's a Pharisee in all of us. A hypocrite. A tendency to be arrogant and blinded, most of the time with self-inflicted blindness. It was no surprise that I got myself into such depths, with such a self-destructive nature. It is only by Your Grace that I did not fall too far out of reach with irreversible damage. Grace undeserved. 

There's a Pharisee in all of us. Whenever I feel more spiritually all-knowing than others, more holy or righteous that someone else ("I am not as bad as that person" or "I'm just a typical sinner, I'm not a murderer or anything.") When I feel that someone is "hopeless" and will never deserve forgiveness. When I read, listen to and know God's Word and do nothing about it, never live it, never follow it.

"The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes."

I know what David meant. I know what Paul meant. Wretched. I would ruin myself to irreversible damage, with no hope at all, if left to myself. Save me from my wicked nature, Lord. Take over the driver's seat of my life and don't ever let me get in the way of your plans. Don't even let me near that steering wheel and don't let me jump out of the car either. Without you, I would be blindly walking on the road straight to hell.

Highlights of Matthew 23 (The Message Version):

^4-7Instead of giving you God's Law as food and drink by which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules, loading you down like pack animals. 

8-10Don't set people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what to do. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do.

^11-12Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant. If you puff yourself up, you'll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you're content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

^27-28"You're hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You're like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it's all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you're saints, but beneath the skin you're total frauds."

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