Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. Matthew 23:27
So, last friday I finally cleaned my bathroom, which was a huge event because it was disastrous. Gross right? I mean its probably the dirtiest place in the whole house, any bathroom that is. But for a long time to me it seemed perfectly fine because I kept things picked up for the most part so when you glanced in looked clean and fine, but we all know about germs and that nasty stuff that builds up in bathrooms so by actual definition this bathroom was not clean...we can become the same way.
In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness. Matthew 23: 28
After I has finished, which was hours later, I came downstairs and said to my mom "I think I know why I don't clean my bathroom very often...because I'm so OCD about it once I get going it just takes up my whole day!" (Go ahead moms its okay to laugh, I laugh at it now too) In reply my mother said "Well maybe if you just cleaned it more often it wouldn't take so long." In other words, stop being lazy...which I have recently really been revealed how bad this condition of laziness had become...but for now I'll stick to my point.
Now your probably wondering why I compared us to my nasty bathroom, if you haven't figured it out already that is! We pick up the things on the surface of our lives to appear "clean" because we are lazy (which is a sin, which means, yes, we are sinful). And then we see ourselves in the mirror of God's word and think, well all appears to look well, when on the inside we are dirty bathroom scum, just as Jesus said to the pharisees about them being rotting corpses inside a pretty white tomb. Day by day the build up of sin continues...making everything unusable.
This laziness causes a multitude of sin to build up inside our hearts and when its exposed ourselves and others around us are disgusted. Cleaning out that filthy heart build up takes way longer than if we had been checking our hearts for the beginnings of filth each day. Through doing this we become more glorifying and a more useful tool for God each and everyday!
1 comment:
I know what you mean. It is so easy to get lazy and let things slide; just as it is so easy to think that "little" sins are no big deal. God hates all sin, and as his followers, we should want to abolish all sin in our life. Though we can never be sinless, we can however (as quoted by Pastor Mike), sin less. Taking a look at the condition of your heart takes a lot of humility and strength - it is our human nature to not want to admit our faults, but God is glorifed when we are weak and look to his strength. It is time to clean house!
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