Lent Day 34
Jesus loves
us and wants nothing to stand in the way of us living a life with Him,
recognizing all He has to offer and receiving His grace and mercy through an
eternal life in His kingdom. He knows He
is the way, the truth and the life. In
Matthew 23, Jesus is speaking to the crowds and the disciples to warn them not
to follow the false leadership of the Pharisees for He knows they are leading
the people astray and away from Him. He
also knows He is about to leave and the disciples will become the leaders of
His true word. In this chapter He is
leaving them with a list of warnings about the behavior of the Pharisees not to
follow and not to allow their way of life to become their own. In verses 13-39 Jesus speaks of 7 woes to
the Pharisees that are still applicable today.
1) Not letting others enter the kingdom
of heaven and not entering yourselves
The
religious leaders of the time were more concerned about power, money and status
demonstrating to the people that worldly things and status were more important
than God.
2) Converting people away from God to
be like yourselves
The
Pharisees stressed the importance of following the law, some they had created
themselves and emphasized a religion of works rather than one of the truth of
God. Because they were powerful and
people looked up to them, they were leading people away from God to be like
themselves.
3) Blindly leading God’s people to
follow man-made traditions instead of God’s Word
The
Pharisees created and focused on superficial distinctions, clouding the
thoughts of followers away from the higher principles of God
4) Involving yourself in every last
detail and ignoring what is really important: justice, mercy and faith
It is
possible to obey the details of the laws but still be disobedient in our
general behavior. Being obedient in one
area does not exempt us from being obedient in all areas. Do not get so caught up in one area of our
walk that we ignore others.
5) Keeping up appearances while your
private world is corrupt
Do not
present yourself outwardly as saintly and holy and inwardly be corrupt
6) Acting spiritual to cover up sin
Living our
Christianity merely as a show for others is like washing the outside of the cup
only.
7) Pretending to have learned from
past history, but your present behavior show you have learned nothing.
In order to
effectively live a life that is changed and represent that change in our
behavior we have to learn from our past and allow God to transform our hearts.
AS a
follower of Christ, we have to be careful who we are seeking truth from, who we
are following as well as what examples we are giving to others to follow.
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