Thoughts for another day

August 21, 2008.

Today's verse: Mt. 23:25. Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess. (KJV)
(Pls. read the above before you read further. Thanks)

Consider this O Christian, there might have been times when we were more intent on doing things on the outside than the inside. For e.g. there was a time when as a devout Catholic, I used to go for Sunday Mass. I used to ensure that I was dressed in my best clothes and impeccable in personal grooming, etc. My focus was myself not the Lord whom I apparently went to serve. At that time, I believe my heart condition was pathetic and needed much cleaning. But if anyone saw me and the body language I used, they would certainly remark and say, ‘this guy is good’. That’s what really mattered to me and pleased me. Later on I realised how foolish I was and therefore today, good dressing and outward behavior, though important do not take primary place.

What is important in our devotion to God is that they look at us and glorify God. When Jesus worked the miracles, people marveled, but the Bible says that they glorified God. In His life too, Jesus’ sole objective was to bring glory to His Father. He was not interested in what they did to Him, but what they did to the Father. In fact His zeal as a man was so much for God that He categorically said, ‘And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemes against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven’, notice the first part here.

What we see today is the Lord indicting the people of His time who were also similarly minded in looking at the decoration of the outside rather than the inside, to their own peril. Jesus is rather caustic in the remarks He makes about such people calling them hypocrites because of this nature of theirs. To us also, Jesus is challenging the way we do things. Is it so that we can gain recognition or is it that we may glorify God. He is asking this question to you and to me, right now.