Standing on the Solid Rock

I am a Hypocrite!
I took a picture of our living room the other day, and I just have to share it with you!

It's clean, I have my crosses on the wall (like a good Christian should) and everything is in it's place. 

Wow, don't you just want to slap me right now?  I want to slap myself!  That sounds ridiculous!  I took the picture (above) one afternoon when the sun was beaming in from our back window.  Sure, it looks ok right there, but let me show you what the sun really exposed:

  If you're reading this from a cell phone, then your small screen won't do this picture justice.  Our floor was COVERED in dog hair and grass.  Our horse-of-a-dog is shedding terribly right now, and her hair is everywhere.  But the house looks fine as long as the sun isn't beaming down, exposing just how filthy the floor really gets:)

SUNlight exposes many things we don't like:

• Wrinkles
• Sunspots
• Dust
• Dirt
• Everything we couldn't see in the dim-lighting/ in the darkness.

But, when the S-O-N, Jesus Christ is shining through our lives, as Believers - the world sees:

• Goodness
• Righteousness
• Truth

"For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord.  Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth) and find out what pleases the Lord."  Ephesians 5:8-10

Isn't that how the world views Christians?  Good, righteous, truthful, kind, loving, moral.....right? 

Too often, the answer is, No.  One Common Worldview:  Christians = Hypocrites.

Why have "Christians" received the label "Hypocrites"? 

Well, I know for me, it's because I often look like picture #1.  It seems like I've got it together.  I've got the cross around my neck, just like the crosses on the wall.  I try to keep it all together, I pray and I go to church every time the doors are open.  I can do all of that on my own!

But the inside of my heart looks like picture #2.  Filthy.  

I AM a hypocrite! 

I am a hypocrite when I worship, and ignore that someone has something against me. *Mathew 18

I am a hypocrite when I gossip *Ephesians 4:29

I am a hypocrite when I don't control my tongue *James 1:26

I am a hypocrite when I listen to gossip *Proverbs 17:4

"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean.  In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness".  Matt. 23:27-28

We can go to church, we can "have it all together", we can pray, we can join every Bible Study...

BUT ONLY GOD has the power to PURIFY our hearts.  To cleanse us from the inside out.

Only the SON can expose the filth and purify us. We CANNOT do it on our own strength.

Let's get real with our own hypocrisy and

stop pointing our fingers at everyone else!

May God purify the filth within our hearts & the filth within our churches:

• Gossip
• Greed
• Immorality
• Obscenity
• Foolish talk
• Coarse joking

May we get real about our hypocrisy, pray for forgiveness and share with the world - what a Gracious & Merciful

God of Light we serve!

"God is light, in him there is no darkness at all.  If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.   But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin."