shortlady
Member
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2005
- Messages
- 2,696
Deal with your hypocrisy!
"...NO MORE PRETENSE..." EPHESIANS 4:25 (TM)
Listen: '"These people honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me"' (Matthew 15:8 NIV). That's Jesus talking about hypocrisy - saying one thing but doing another. It stinks! Two things:
1) Practicing hypocrisy is natural, resist it! Hypocrisy comes naturally to humans. It happens when we let our flesh rule our spirit. We let ourselves get sucked into saying and doing things to impress people and taste that sweet sugar of pride.
2) Breaking with hypocrisy is painful, stay at it! It's easier to train a new Christian than re-program an old one steeped in religion. Winning any personal battle starts with admitting the problem. It is then that the Holy Spirit can begin His work and put us on the path to freedom. But be warned, it is a long, tough brutal fight.
Paul writes, '...I insist - and God backs me up on this - that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd . . . that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to Him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through . . . take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you. What this adds up to . . . no more pretence...' (Ephesians 4:17-25 TM). Could language be any clearer
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"...NO MORE PRETENSE..." EPHESIANS 4:25 (TM)
Listen: '"These people honour Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me"' (Matthew 15:8 NIV). That's Jesus talking about hypocrisy - saying one thing but doing another. It stinks! Two things:
1) Practicing hypocrisy is natural, resist it! Hypocrisy comes naturally to humans. It happens when we let our flesh rule our spirit. We let ourselves get sucked into saying and doing things to impress people and taste that sweet sugar of pride.
2) Breaking with hypocrisy is painful, stay at it! It's easier to train a new Christian than re-program an old one steeped in religion. Winning any personal battle starts with admitting the problem. It is then that the Holy Spirit can begin His work and put us on the path to freedom. But be warned, it is a long, tough brutal fight.
Paul writes, '...I insist - and God backs me up on this - that there be no going along with the crowd, the empty-headed, mindless crowd . . . that's no life for you. You learned Christ! My assumption is that you have paid careful attention to Him, been well instructed in the truth precisely as we have it in Jesus. Since then, we do not have the excuse of ignorance, everything - and I do mean everything - connected with that old way of life has to go. It's rotten through and through . . . take on an entirely new way of life - a God-fashioned life, a life renewed from the inside and working itself into your conduct as God accurately reproduces His character in you. What this adds up to . . . no more pretence...' (Ephesians 4:17-25 TM). Could language be any clearer
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