The greeting card business has to be a lucrative thing! It costs four bucks for a piece of paper, some foil imprinting, and a ribbon! The practical side of me says, "Jerry, just go fold a piece of paper, write your thoughts on it, and send it off." Message delivered, money saved. What a cheap guy, huh? Of course, I realize that the message of encouragement or love that a greeting card communicates is much enhanced by the decorative way it is presented, so despite my inclination to be cheap, I buy the cards. As I stood at the card rack yesterday, I wondered how often a card gets purchased and sent simply to meet an expectation? A person can buy a card that says all the right words and mail it. There is no lie detector at the check out register that determines if the heart of the sender is actually filled with the love professed by the card. Sending a card is easy. Really loving somebody is much more expensive!
Jesus challenged his disciples to think about the importance of matching 'right words' with 'right actions' in a teaching story that He told about the religious leaders of His day. These men were His greatest foes. They professed a love for God. They knew all the right words, even how to create loopholes for themselves so they could look righteous while doing exactly what they wanted to do. Jesus wanted those who followed Him to know that God wasn't buying the Pharisees' professions of devotions as authentic. Here's His story.
"A man with two sons told the older boy, ‘Son, go out and work in the vineyard today.’ The son answered, ‘No, I won’t go,’ but later he changed his mind and went anyway. Then the father told the other son, ‘You go,’ and he said, ‘Yes, sir, I will.’ But he didn’t go. "Which of the two obeyed his father?" They replied, "The first." Then Jesus explained his meaning: "I tell you the truth, corrupt tax collectors and prostitutes will get into the Kingdom of God before you do." (Matthew 21:28-31, NLT)
Cheap religion is all about making a good impression by singing the 'right' kind of songs, being in the church at the 'right' times, or saying the 'right' kind of prayers -all unmatched by a right kind of heart! No matter how we dress it up, God isn't impressed by words alone. He desires true devotion that encompasses the totality of our lives. According to His story, God would much prefer that we honestly admit to our desire to do our own thing than to say we love Him while continuing to live for ourselves.
Honesty, before Him and with ourselves, allows the Spirit to convict us and change us. Adopting a superficial holiness is a kind of vaccine that prevents us from feeling the effects of sin's sickness that drives us to desperately seek Him! Listen to the passion in the words of the Lord when He challenges a heart-less religion. "Frauds! Isaiah’s prophecy of you hit the bull’s-eye: These people make a big show of saying the right thing, but their heart isn’t in it." (Matthew 15:7-8, The Message)
Believer, as we worship through another Holy Week, let's engage our hearts! Let God's love, demonstrated in the death of Jesus on the Cross, touch you deeply, calling you to a life of love. Invite the Spirit to take the story of the Resurrection and drive it deeply into your mind, making you a person passionate about living for eternal purposes, not just the things of this present world. Be on guard for mere sentiment replacing real heart-felt devotion.
Here's a word from the Word on which to meditate today.
"Dear friends, do you think you’ll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn’t it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense? I can already hear one of you agreeing by saying, "Sounds good. You take care of the faith department, I’ll handle the works department." Not so fast. You can no more show me your works apart from your faith than I can show you my faith apart from my works. Faith and works, works and faith, fit together hand in glove." (James 2:14-18, The Message)
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