February 6, 2014: Fake Christians

Matthew 23:23-39

Amplified Bible (AMP)

23 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you give a tenth of your mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected and omitted the weightier (more important) matters of the Law—right and justice and mercy and fidelity. These you ought [particularly] to have done, without neglecting the others.

24 You blind guides, filtering out a gnat and gulping down a camel!

25 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the plate, but within they are full of extortion (prey, spoil, plunder) and grasping self-indulgence.

26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and of the plate, so that the outside may be clean also.

27 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you are like tombs that have been whitewashed, which look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything impure.

28 Just so, you also outwardly seem to people to be just and upright but inside you are full of pretense and lawlessness and iniquity.

29 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, pretenders (hypocrites)! For you build tombs for the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous,

30 Saying, If we had lived in the days of our forefathers, we would not have aided them in shedding the blood of the prophets.

31 Thus you are testifying against yourselves that you are the descendants of those who murdered the prophets.

32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers’ sins to the brim [so that nothing may be wanting to a full measure].

33 You serpents! You spawn of vipers! How can you escape the penalty to be suffered in hell (Gehenna)?

34 Because of this, take notice: I am sending you prophets and wise men (interpreters and teachers) and scribes (men learned in the Mosaic Law and the Prophets); some of them you will kill, even crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and pursue and persecute from town to town,

35 So that upon your heads may come all the blood of the righteous (those who correspond to the divine standard of right) shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar [of burnt offering].

36 Truly I declare to you, all these [evil, calamitous times] will come upon this generation.

37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, murdering the prophets and stoning those who are sent to you! How often would I have gathered your children together as a mother fowl gathers her brood under her wings, and you refused!

38 Behold, your house is forsaken and desolate (abandoned and left destitute of God’s help).

39 For I declare to you, you will not see Me again until you say, Blessed (magnified in worship, adored, and exalted) is He Who comes in the name of the Lord!

Jesus is talking to church people here. If you're a new Christian, beware! Don't assume that everyone who looks and acts like a Christian really is one. You will encounter many fake Christians. I know because I used to be one.

In my early twenties I looked and acted the part, but my heart was selfish and cold. But I didn't know it. Being Pentecostal was the only life I knew. I really thought I was serving God. I was content with my "form of godliness." 

2 Timothy 3:5

Amplified Bible (AMP)

5 For [although] they hold a form of piety (true religion), they deny and reject and are strangers to the power of it [their conduct belies the genuineness of their profession]. Avoid [all] such people [turn away from them].

This scripture was me in a nutshell. I was a know it all, hypocritical brat. 

And it took the loss of a friendship to turn me around. God placed a mirror in front of me and what I saw was shockingly ugly.

James 1:23-25

Amplified Bible (AMP)

23 For if anyone only listens to the Word without obeying it and being a doer of it, he is like a man who looks carefully at his [own] natural face in a mirror;

24 For he thoughtfully observes himself, and then goes off and promptly forgets what he was like.

25 But he who looks carefully into the faultless law, the [law] of liberty, and is faithful to it andperseveres in looking into it, being not a heedless listener who forgets but an active doer [who obeys], he shall be blessed in his doing (his life of obedience).

Hebrews 4:12

Amplified Bible (AMP)

12 For the Word that God speaks is alive and full of power [making it active, operative, energizing, and effective]; it is sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating to the dividing line of the breath of life (soul) and [the immortal] spirit, and of joints and marrow [of the deepest parts of our nature], exposing and sifting and analyzing and judging the very thoughts and purposes of the heart.

I will never forget crying and repenting in His presence. He is so loving and patient. 

"Dear Jesus, thank You for that day You showed me what I really looked like. I was exactly like the Pharisees. I didn't see the true me. I only looked at the outside of the cup. Thank You for Your amazing word that reveals all! And thank You for allowing me to come back into right relationship with You. You make all things new. You restore me. You are my Redeemer and my Savior. How I love you, Jesus. I am homesick right now. I long for that day when I will be with You forever! AMEN."