HYPOCRITCAL HONOR, LET ME COUNT MY WAYS – Mar. 21

“You hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy of you, when he said: ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their heart is far from me; in vain do they worship me, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.”   Matthew 15:7-9

Hypocritical honor is inexorably linked with authority in a world that seeks favor.

I receive authority through the position that my municipal clients hire me to fulfill.  I have been complemented and praised by those with pending applications.  My opinions have been sought as a wise advisor by those to whom want my favor.  My friendship has been elicited by those under my authority.

I understand that much of the honor that I have received while residing in even limited authority is not genuine.

Much of the honor lavished upon those in positions of authority comes only by lips.  I know what it is like to hear words of praise and then observe actions that reveal a contrary heart.  Hypocritical honor is merely an acceptable form of bribery offered in hopes of receiving favor.  There is an astonishing variety of insincere honor that can be observed in our daily lives:

Children learn early to honor their parents in order to manipulate favor.

In hope of obtaining better grades, students heap adoration upon teachers and professors.

Incompetent officials are rarely challenged for want of a favorable future decision.

The camaraderie of managers is regularly fostered for job security.

In hope of getting out of a ticket, traffic violators will pile upon the officer layers of polite respect.

Politicians are often honored solely due to their elected position and not for anything they have done (or despite what they have done).

Most of us have succumbed to hypocritical honor.  It is how we get through many of the ubiquitous layers of authority in our daily lives.  Hypocritical honor is a danger whenever authority is present in an association.  We all want favor and we can slide into insincere honor of those in authority without even being aware of what we are doing.

There is no higher authority than God.

and

We all want God’s favor and blessings in our lives.

God the Father 04 (Photo credit: Waiting For The Word)

This combination of authority and desire for favor is ripe for hypocritical honor.  Everyone is in danger of sliding into an insincere attitude toward God without even realizing what we are doing.  The religious, those who have grown up in the Church, and those adept with Christian culture, are the most susceptible.  This was Jesus’ criticism of the Pharisees.  The Pharisees lavished words of praise and esteem to God but they did not love God.

But woe to you Pharisees!  For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.  These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.  (Luke 11:42)

God is like no other.  He has established a relationship with those who are His that is not based upon authority and favor.  God showed His love (favor) to this world by sending His only Son, Jesus Christ, into world so that anyone who believes in Jesus Christ will not perish but have eternal life.  For those who are in Christ, the relationship with God has fundamentally changed.

No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you.  (John 15:15)

But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  (John 1:12-13)

So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.  (Galatians 4:7)

In our new relationship with God, we are to relate to Him as our loving Father.  We are to seek Christ as our friend.

We should never come to our Father, heaping words of adoration in hopes that He will not whack us – that is hypocritical honor and He hates it.

We should never be obedient in hopes of obligating favor from God’s authority – that is what a slave does and it is hated by God.

Our actions should originate out of love for our heavenly Father; it should be demonstrated by a friendship with Christ.  It is why Christ said:

If you love me, you will keep my commandments. (John 14:15)

We can know our honor is sincere when it is demonstrated through obedient actions willingly given from a heart motivated only by love.  May we examine our hearts so that what comes out of our lips reflects a heart that is living in the favor of a new relationship as a child of God.

PRAYER: Father, thank you for sending us your Son to give us a new relationship with you.  Forgive me for reverting to my old slave mentality of seeking your favor through heartless words and actions.  Forgive me for not treating you as my friend and Father.  Forgive me for being a hypocrite.  Help me to live in your love.  Help me to respond to you in love in all my words and deeds. I pray this in the precious name of your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen

“MISSING THE GLORIOUS” – Feb 8

“And they watched Jesus, to see whether he would heal him on the Sabbath, so that they might accuse him.”  Mark 3:2

I was traveling for three of the five workdays this last week.  If you have to be away from home, traveling to Yosemite National Park is not a bad place for a business meeting.    A main conversational topic of our first day of meetings was the drought that California is currently enduring.  While that is bad for California, my co-worker and I planned to take advantage of the clear skies to behold the grandeur of Yosemite on the morning before we had to travel home.  Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate with our sight-seeing endeavors.

I awoke to the drizzle of rain cascading from rooftops.  The prayers for moisture had been answered by a storm front that moved in while I slept in my hotel room.  When I peered from my window, I could not see more than 100 feet beyond the pane of glass.  A thick fog has settled upon the valley.  It was not going to be a good day for sight-seeing.

My co-worker and I had nothing better to do, so we went into Yosemite Valley despite the poor visibility.  The rain turned into snow as we made our way into Valley.  It was beautiful to see trees coated with snow in the spirit of Christmas.  However, that was not what we had come to see.  A canopy of clouds obscured the colossal glory of El Capitan, Half Dome, Yosemite Falls and all the other sites that loom above tiny observers in the valley below.

We stood in one of the most beautiful places on earth but were blinded to the very manifestations that make Yosemite special.  We were blinded because we could not see above us.  I would never know what I was missing, if I had not been to Yosemite before.

I think  many people  stumble through life never knowing what they are missing.  We stand in the valley of our reality, believing only what our eyes can sense, oblivious to the grandeur that surrounds us.  We are continually surrounded by colossal glory but blinded to the miracles that make our lives truly special.

I know of no better example than the Pharisees who were trying to accuse Jesus.  Consider what Jesus was doing:

He was healing people.
He was instantaneously cleansing men of leprosy.
He was casting out demons.
He was causing paralytics to rise, pick up their beds, and walk home.
He was controlling storms.
He was making wine out of water.
He was creating food out of nothing.
He was restoring a withered hand.

Yet, the Pharisees were more concerned about when he was doing the miraculous rather than acknowledging what He was doing.  They refused to look up.  If they acknowledged what He was doing, then they would have to acknowledge who He was.  They were blinded by the hardness of their hearts.  They were experiencing the most spectacular events of all time but they were oblivious.  They were in the presence of the King of Kings, but could not recognize Him.

They were blinded by their religion. 

We all can become blinded by very good things.  The Pharisees valued the keeping of the law more than the fulfillment of the prophecies that were literally happening before their eyes. The law was a wonderful gift but it was never greater than the Giver.  We have been blessed by so many gifts from our heavenly Father.  All good things have the potential to lower our eyes into the valley when we should be looking up into the glorious.

May we never miss the colossal grandeur that continually surrounds us by being content with good things.  Let us always set our eyes on the Great.

PRAYER: Lord, Your Word is light to us. It is power and life.  It clears away all that blinds us.  Lord, let that light, that life, that power, that truth break upon the darkness of my heart.  Keep my eyes set upon you.  Whatever hardness of heart may be in me, let your light shine, may the light of the gospel, the glorious gospel, shine in and through my heart; softening me to see all that you are and the glorious that surrounds me   I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.

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“SOWING FOR A HARVEST” – Nov 19

“Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love; break up you fallow ground, for it is time to seek the Lord, that he may come and rain righteousness upon you.”  Hosea 10:12

On Sunday, I bundled up for a morning run before Church.   I run along roads that crisscross farm ground.  The harvest has been reaped but the work is not done for these farmers.  Most of the fields were quiet on this Sunday morning but I could see acres of effort spanning out before me.  Fields that were full of corn, wheat, and mint a mere month ago have been plowed, furrowed, and sown for a winter crop.

I was reminded as I ran along these prepared fields that a harvest of value requires an effort in sowing.  It takes no effort to reap an invaluable harvest.  I own a fallow field.  I expended no effort on that field this year.  Yet, I got an incredible harvest of weeds that I will have to burn in the spring.  A harvest of value takes intention and effort.

If I want to harvest the steadfast love of my heavenly Father, then I need to be sowing righteousness.  That takes intention and effort.

There are several steps in the process of sowing for a harvest.  The two main steps involve preparing the soil and planting the seed.  We are told in Hosea that we will reap steadfast love when we plant the seed of righteousness into fallow ground that has been prepared – broken up.  However, man cannot do this process on his own.  No one is capable of both preparing the soil and planting the seed.

Just like a plow breaks apart hard fallow ground, repentance breaks open a person’s heart to allow the seed of righteousness to grow into a harvest of steadfast love.  The seed will never be planted into the hardened soil of an unrepentant heart.  Therefore, every person must come to the Father as a child, with a repentant and humble heart; a heart that has been broken by the reality of its own sin, recognizing its unrighteousness, and need for a Savior.

Man can come to God in repentance but he does not have what is needed to finish the sowing process.  He does not have the seed.  Our works cannot create a seed of righteousness.  God has the seed of eternal life.  God has to rain righteousness upon us .  God, in his grace and mercy, rains his righteousness down upon those who have been called in true repentance to the Son.  In them, in the good soil, the free gift of righteousness is planted through the blood of the Christ.

This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ presented long ago in the prophecies of the Old Testament.

Today, everyone sows to something.

Sow for yourselves righteousness; reap steadfast love. (Hosea 10:12)

OR

For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. (Hosea 8:7)

The Pharisees tried to sow their own seed of righteousness.  They did not reap a harvest of steadfast love.  In fact, that was Christ’s criticism of the Pharisees.  They did not love God or God’s people.  They loved themselves and the religion that they had created, both of which were detestable to Christ.

But woe to you Pharisees!  For you tithe mint and rue and every herb, and neglect justice and the love of God.  These you ought to have done, without neglecting  others.  (Luke 11:42)

The result is that they…

…became detestable like the thing they loved. (Hosea 9:10b)

The Pharisees, like so many other people, sowed to the wind and reaped the whirlwind.

There is a harvest in everyone’s life.  There will be a harvest in my life.

It will be either a harvest of righteousness or a whirlwind of judgment.
We all will become like that which we love either righteous or detestable.

It is so easy to forget to be sowing.  It is so easy to become lackadaisical about where we set our eyes and start to become focused more on this world than on God, the source of our righteousness, and then wonder why we do not feel the steadfast love of the Father.  We missed the harvest because we failed to sow.

We need to remember that a harvest of value takes intention and effort. 

We have been called to maintain repentant and humble hearts; hearts that stay broken and open to the work of the Spirit in our lives.  We are called to keep our eyes fixed on the things of the Spirit; acknowledging that the seed of righteousness, the fruit of the Spirit, continues to come from the grace and mercy of our heavenly Father.

May we be good and faithful farmers of our souls and reap the harvest of steadfast love.  What have you sown today?

PRAYER: O Lord, I am so inclined to wander.  I am so inclined to becoming proud and unrepentant.  Father, soften my heart.  Help me to stay focused on You in all that I do.  Make me a sower of righteousness.  Grant me a harvest of your steadfast love.  I pray this in the precious name of your Son,  Jesus Christ.   Amen.