Monday, April 22, 2024
All those who want to be honest about themselves, raise your hands.
Wait! Nobody? Shocker!
Personally, I find it much easier to be honest about others. Being honest about myself might require some work—especially if I don't want to be a hypocrite, saying I'm one thing but being another.
The “hypocrisy thing” was one of my biggest struggles when I was deciding to commit my life to Jesus. People knew me. They knew what I was: an adulterer, a blasphemer, a liar, a drinker, and a cheat.
How could I be that one day and the next day, after committing my life to Jesus, be someone else? I was afraid I couldn’t measure up, and I was right. But I soon found that Jesus would do it for me. He changed my life.
Jesus didn’t have a bunch of rules for me to follow. He offered me his love and wanted me to walk with him through life, choosing him over the things I had previously chased and thought would make me happy.
Matthew 23:1-3
1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 2 “The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees are the official interpreters of the law of Moses. 3 So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach.
Without mincing words, Jesus illustrates all the ways the Pharisees and scribes were using God’s law to keep people from experiencing the love of the Father. They had made God into a cruel, merciless nitpicker, instead of a loving Father who longed to wrap them in his arms and comfort them. Jesus could not tolerate these lies about God, and he came down hard on those who told them. God desires relationship, not rule keeping.
Relationships are hard. You have to show up and be who you say you are to develop a relationship. Good relationships are cultivated through love, trust, honesty, and care. It’s much more difficult than simply checking a box.
Being a bit lazy myself, I sometimes wish checking boxes would do the trick, but it is the relationship that Jesus is after. I promise you he is worth the effort, because, as Tara Leigh Cobble says in The Bible Recap, “he's where the joy is!”
Bottom Line: You can lose your religion by being honest about you.
Questions:
Do you have a relationship with Jesus, or are you just trying to do good stuff so he’ll like you?
Next Steps:
Developing a loving relationship with Jesus usually requires a community of believers to walk with you. Try joining a Group or serving team. As you grow those relationships, they will help you to be honest about yourself, finding the places in your life Jesus wants to heal.
Prayer:
Heavenly Father, thank you for your infinite patience with me as I try to figure out how to be in relationship with you. I think I often make it more difficult than it needs to be, but you know my heart. Help me to remember that you do not think as the world thinks, and I don’t need to do anything to make you love me. Help me to remember that you loved me first, not because of who I am, but because of who you are. Grant me honest introspection as each day I deny myself, take up my cross, and follow you.
Series Theme Verse:
Romans 6:14
Sin is no longer your master, for you no longer live under the requirements of the law. Instead, you live under the freedom of God’s grace.
This post was written by Lauri White, a regular contributor to the LivingItOut.