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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.
“Woe to you Pharisees,
because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden
herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced
the latter without leaving the former undone.”
Luke 11:42
This ends
today’s reading from God's holy word. Thanks be to God.
Whoa!
You may have heard this
command before, especially if you have ever rode a horse or watched someone
else do it. It’s an important order because it is used when you want the horse
to stop, a signal for the horse to put on the brakes.
The Bible is full of “Whoas!”
for us as believers, orders meant to stop us from traveling down the path of
sin. We’ll see a handful of these “Whoas!” over the next few devotions as Jesus
continues to address the Pharisee who invited Him to dine but is really
addressing all Pharisees in general.
In yesterday’s devotion,
we found Jesus addressing what was typically His number one beef with the
Jewish religious leaders that being their propensity to be hypocritical in the
way they lived and led the Jewish people. You’ll remember Jesus emphasized this
point by saying the Pharisees liked others to see that they were clean on the
outside when they were really dirty within. His call for them was to be clean
in and out.
Well, as we turn to the
first devotion of this series, Jesus adds to the list of behavior adjustments
needed for the Pharisees to become more like the people God wanted them to be,
the God they leveraged to control the people as they wanted. Look at today’s
verse from Luke, Chapter 11:
“Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue
and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of
God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” Luke 11:42
Here we find Jesus
giving a perfect summation of the Pharisaical main problem. For they
concentrated on strictly adhering to and enforcing the intricacies and details of
the Law while missing the bigger picture of what God expected from His people.
In this particular
instance, Jesus highlights the matter of tithing and how the Pharisees will
give a tenth of even their smallest, less significant possessions like mint,
rue, and other garden herbs in tribute to the Lord. They gave what they had in
strict compliance when it came to material things but not so much when it came
to the immaterial, when it came to the matters of doing right and loving
others. Jesus indicted the Pharisees on this by saying:
“You neglect justice and the love of God.”
It was why Jesus said woe
was warranted to the Pharisees but He was also saying, “Whoa!”, in trying to
get the Pharisees to examine themselves and the sinful way they were living
with the hope of stopping such behavior.
One couldn’t nor shouldn’t
strictly comply with one part of the Law and not other requirements of God who
said these things through His messengers Micah and Moses:
“What does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and
to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and
with all your strength.” Deuteronomy 6:5
“…love your neighbor as yourself.” Leviticus 19:18
God’s people were to be
people of justice who loved God with every fiber of their being. Everyone was
expected to live this way but if you were one who was set apart as a leader of
the people, you would be even more accountable to live according to these standards,
to set the right example for godly living for the people you were leading. This
is where the Pharisees were falling short.
And so Jesus, trying to
help the Pharisees change the errors of their ways, offered this guidance:
“You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former
undone.”
In other words, the
Pharisees’ emphasis on justice and extending God’s love needed to be just as
fervent as their passion toward adhering to God’s commands. It was nothing
short of spiritually irresponsible and disobedient to comply with only part of
what God had called them to do.
This is why Jesus was essentially
giving the command to “Whoa!” in regard to their behavior by letting them know
they were trending into the territory of woe.
All this made me wonder
how many of us are making the same mistake as the Pharisees, trying to live in
a way where it appears we are complying with all the rules of the scriptures
when we lack the compassion for others or the ability to do right or even
enforce justice when it comes to what we see in our society today.
Are we acting justly,
loving mercy, and walking humbly with our God?
Are we really loving God
with all our heart, soul, and strength?
Are we loving our
neighbors as ourselves?
Perhaps Jesus is talking
to a larger audience than just the Pharisees here.
Perhaps He is giving us
the order, “Whoa!”, so we can examine our own ways and correct where needed
before woe comes our way.
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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