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In Christ, Mark
In Christ, Mark
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The scriptures. May God bless the reading of His holy
word.
When Jesus had finished
speaking, a Pharisee invited Him to eat with him; so He went in and reclined at
the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he noticed that Jesus did not
first wash before the meal.
Then the Lord said to
him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside
you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who
made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be
generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”
Luke 11:37-41
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Spiritually speaking,
can a person appear “clean” on the outside and yet be “dirty” on the inside?
I think anyone who has
lived a little would have to say the answer is definitely “yes”.
You see, as we grow and
mature, we seem to get better and better at masking ourselves. We become very
skilled in only letting people see what we want them to see while carefully
concealing and hiding other things under the surface. The more and more adept
we get at it, the more defined the difference can be between who we seem to be
and who we really are deep down in.
Here’s the only problem
with anyone who tries to do this, who tries to throw up a smoke screen to keep
people from seeing their flaws which can include their sinful self…
The Lord sees
everything. Nothing is able to be hidden from His sight.
We see everything
covered so far on full display in today’s passage from the eleventh chapter of
the Gospel of Luke. There, we find Jesus invited to sit down and dine with a
Pharisee after driving out demons and delivering some teaching. Look at these
verses again here:
When Jesus had finished speaking, a Pharisee invited Him to eat with him;
so He went in and reclined at the table. But the Pharisee was surprised when he
noticed that Jesus did not first wash before the meal.
Then the Lord said to him, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside
of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You
foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But
now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be
clean for you.” Luke 11:37-41
After He had finished
speaking, we see that Jesus is invited to dine with a Pharisee, typically one
of Jesus’ most staunch opposers. In fact, the Pharisees always liked to try and
hang around wherever Jesus was so they could try to find fault with His
ministry and levy criticism against Him. And no more did Jesus even recline at
the table that we read the Pharisee beginning to conjure up complaint within over
his guest not washing before the meal. It was customary for the Pharisees to
wash their hands, immersing them in water and washing up to their elbows before
dining. Such was their concern over the matter of defilement and uncleanliness.
Note here that the
Pharisee said nothing to Jesus about the way he felt. Perhaps he felt he could
conceal his real feelings and Jesus wouldn’t know but as we see, he was dead
wrong. For Jesus starts to address him and brings the matter of cleanliness to
the forefront immediately.
Did I mention that
nothing can be hidden from the Lord?
Of course, one of Jesus’
greatest criticisms of the Pharisees as a whole was that they were hypocritical
in the way they conducted business as Jewish spiritual leaders. This simply
meant that they didn’t practice what they preached. The rules and regulations
they staunchly called others to adhere to were optional for them. In the end
translation, the Pharisees pretended to be the epitome of righteousness when
the truth was they were far from it, something that Jesus tried to highlight
through his words to the hospitable Pharisee:
“Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but
inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the
one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside
you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.”
Here we find the cup and
dish symbolic of the outside spiritual appearance of the Pharisees, the façade they
put on for others to see. The goal was to convince everyone they were righteously
squeaky clean and free of the sins that plagued those they led with a pious iron
fist.
But Jesus wasn’t having
any of it. He could see the greed and wickedness pervasive across the Pharisee
community and seethed at the double standard they adhered to. We see Him call
the Pharisees out for who they were, “foolish people” to believe they could
serve so hypocritically under the view of God, who made their inside and
outside, and get away with it.
He would say the same
thing about so many people today who are nothing more than modern day
Pharisees.
Friends, Jesus wants for
us to be as clean on the inside as we appear to be on the outside. He wants it
as much for us today as He did for the New Testament Pharisees who snubbed His
direction and instead sought to do away with Him. We can start to do just that
by following Him in everything we do, making His life our life, His words our
words, and His thoughts ours.
When we do, and only
when we do, will we reach a point where we can be as clean on the inside as we
are externally, the Holy Spirit guiding our every thought and word and action,
while we allow the blood of Jesus, the Lamb of God, to wash us white as snow.
Amen.
In Christ,
Mark
PS: Feel free to leave a comment and please share this with anyone you feel might be blessed by it.
Send any prayer requests to OurChristianWalk@aol.com
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