I really wish I would have had this blog just a few days ago. The past two weeks have been filled with turbulent emotions- constant conversations with myself about what it is that I SHOULD be doing and what I actually am. Over the next couple days I am going to try my hardest to recount the emotions and feelings that led me to this point.
Before I do that, however, my heart is requiring me to post a warning of sorts. Now this warning isn't directed at the population reading this blog; instead, it is a public warning pointed at my heart.
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. 6But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. Matthew 6:5-6"
I know that most of us have a very good understanding of what "hypocrite" means- but it wasn't an association that the Greeks would have had. Hypocrite comes from the Greek word hypokrisis, which simply means "actor." Jesus is referring to thePharisee's as actors! Hypocrite isnt some heavy religious word, instead it is common; it is simple, it is something everyone experiences.
The caution he raises here, as part of the sermon on the mount, is VERY real. It is so easy to slip into to mentality that "look at how religious I am- I MUST be a good christian." Imagine I prayin front of my biblestudy every week. After one particularly enthralling discussion my heart is in tune with the lord and my prayer is moving and powerful. Someone afterwards comes up to me and tells me "that was such a great prayer, thank you". It doesnttake long before it is more important that my prayers impress my biblestudy than it is my prayers be a real and heart felt conversation with my creator.
You see, the real concern that Jesus expresses in these verses is that it is very easy to the "Right©" things for the wrong reasons. In fact, many times the "right" things are started for the right reasons... but we, as humans, have a miraculous gift to take good things and twist them to evil. We can even turn a prayer designed to praise God (maker of heaven and earth) into a means of praising ourselves (I made a grilled cheese sandwich)!
The scary thing about this realization is that so often we dont even know we have done it. I am certainly not intending to steal praise away from God but I do it anyways. I have done it to many times before and I am sure I will do it again. So much of what I do in the name of faith can quickly become something else... an act. That makes me a hypokrisis, an actor.
This blog is not about me trying to impress you with my religion or my faith. I pray instead for the opposite, that you would see the brokenness, struggles, and blemishes that prevent me from having the faith I desire. It is through those cracks in my life that one can see the glory and the grace of God. I want to put him on the pedestal, not me.
