“Snuggle in God’s arms. When you are hurting, when you feel lonely, left out. let Him cradle you, comfort you, reassure you of His all-sufficient power and love.”
“This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.”
Matthew 15:8, NASB
“Of all bad men, religious bad men are the worst.”C.S. Lewis
This singular verse is set in a series of other verses– it certainly does not stand alone. When these come together, we realize how much the Holy Spirit despises hypocrisy. He hates it, I suppose, because of the destructiveness wreaked on our spirits.
A father or mother may feel a hatred at the dealers who sell the drugs to their child. It’s not that they have any special animosity toward the pusher, but rather, they love their son so much. They will do whatever it takes to protect him.
I really think this is what Jesus feels when it comes to the purveyors of religious legalism, or hypocrisy. He burns with a holy hatred against this particular form of darkness. His vehemence seems reserved, not for sin so much as these lies of “religious pretending”. His repeated “roughness” has to be considered– why?
This should jar us into what is real, and all that is not. The word for hypocrite is “two-faced”. It was used in the Greek theaters for the masks worn by the actors. They would wear whatever the script called for. The audience never knew what was real, and what was only theatrical props.
With our lips (speech) we will honor God. We’ll only speak good things, and words (and actions) become an issue of being appropriate. We put on the particular mask of the moment, and enter the theater. Our hearts are hardly touched, and the deepest part of us becomes inoculated to the real presence of God.
The deep hatred Jesus has is due to the enormity of this sin. It is spirituality gone bad. Twisted and confused, with the shallow veneer of “respectability”. It seems to work for many of us. When our discipleship gets used to wearing masks, things can get very religious.
One last thought. Ships and boats often have to go into dry dock to be scraped clean. Weeds and barnacles can actually cover the hulls; they can severely impede the ships function. Periodic inspection is needed. Jesus wants us to be truly clean.
“Beware of no man more than of yourself; we carry our worst enemies within us.”
I’ve been exposed to a lot of winds blowing through, and moving on. You learn to separate the chaff from the grain. Much of my life has been spent winnowing out to get to the good stuff. God, through his word describes a coming “trial by fire” over each person’s works. Romans 14:12 says,
“Yes, each of us will give a personal account to God.”
One time I walked as a backslidden Christian. I remember once waking up from a drunken stupor with my t-shirt soaked in blood. That blood was someone elses. I sobered up really quick. I had this shadowy awareness of beating someone almost to death. I still catch myself wondering what exactly happened. There is so much stuff that will be revealed, and I have done many despicable things.
The judgment seat of Christ, therefore, involves believers giving an account of their lives to Christ. The judgment seat of Christ does not determine salvation; that was determined by Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf and our faith in Him. All of our sins are forgiven, and we will never be condemned for them.
We should not look at the judgment seat of Christ not as condemnation but as love, but rather as the Lord speaking into our lives. Yes, as the Bible says, we will have to give an account of ourselves. Part of this is surely answering for the sins we committed.
But the One who will judge me is also my Savior. That comforts me.
The Greek word for the judgement of Christians is “bema seat.” It was where the judge sat during athletic contests. Think of the high chair on which a court official sits during a tennis match.
The issue will not be our salvation, but our faithfulness.
Loving Jesus must become your critical objective for the rest of your days, 1 Peter 4:8, “Love covers a multitude of sins.” We also read of the sinful woman who washed Jesus feet, “therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” (Luke 7:47)
Dear one, practice loving him– starting today. Many are the doers, few be the lovers. The demanding weight of evangelism and world missions has quadrupled in the last 10 years. Now is our time! We love much! Time is getting very short.
My chronic pain makes my quadriplegia feel like a walk in the park.
People often ask how I manage my pain. Well, when its fangs sink deep into my hips and back, that’s my signal. I begin deep breathing, slow and steady. And when fiery pain threatens to overtake me—just as the flames threatened to consume Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in that fiery furnace found in the book of Daniel—I have a conversation with it.
I don’t say, “I can’t stand this; it’s killing me,” because words like that are fraught with anxiety. Fear only makes things worse. Instead, I calmly ask Jesus to meet me in my pain, to not let it crush me. And the Son of God never fails to meet me, just as he met those three Hebrews in that hot furnace of fire.
And what does Jesus say to me in that agonizing place of pain?
He comforts me with his own words. He will say something like, “Joni, my Spirit inspired 2 Corinthians 4:8 for a good reason. For although you are ‘hard pressed on every side,’ you will not be crushed.”
Oh, what a promise! Pain may tighten its vice grip, but it cannot crush me. As I cling to God’s promises, my pain pushes me further into Jesus’s heart. There is nothing sweeter than finding my Savior in the middle of my hellish circumstances. It helps deflect the pain and helps me to suffer well. Jesus helps me be in that unhappy place well.
All the years I’ve lived in my wheelchair, I never got delivered from pain. But I met my Deliverer in it. I didn’t get healed, but I found intimate fellowship with the Healer.
Friend, pain does not have to crush you.
As you courageously look at the stern countenance of pain and enter unafraid into its recesses, you will defang it of its terror. You’ll see that the Lord is in your pain, having transfigured it to become a place of union with him. Jesus conquered the insidious ways of pain and because of that, he is your best prescription for pain—whether it’s in your hip, your head, or your heart.
And remember, there is a glorious day coming when it says, “He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4). Until then, when pain encroaches, start deep breathing and cling to a Bible promise. There are thousands to hold onto.
Perhaps my favorite is this one uttered by almighty God to you and me, promising, “I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you” (Isaiah 46:4b).
Broken Believers 