Monday January 6

God Loves a Good Hypocrite

Matt. 5: 48 Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father in Heaven is perfect. (KJV)

In Matthew 23 Jesus seriously rebuked the scribes and Pharisees and called them hypocrites. Ouch! That’s rough. You wouldn’t like to be called a hypocrite, would you? The word hypocrite sounds like stern, self-righteous people who always think themselves to be perfect while seeing all the faults in everybody else. Maybe you can even think of one or two of them right now. But wait a minute before you start pointing fingers, because maybe, just maybe you are one!

A hypocrite is someone false, who is not all that he pretends to be or is expected to be. Christians are followers of Christ and are expected to behave like Christ. Actually, the Bible says we are to strive to be as perfect as God is perfect! You can’t be serious! Yes. It’s right there in today’s text. But that’s impossible! You’re right, it is. Yet that is the standard God expects us to strive for. When we aim so high we will achieve our very best, but we cannot reach God’s perfection.

Are you beginning to see where I’m going? All of us, therefore will be less than we are expected to be. We all make mistakes. We are not what we are expected to be. We are hypocrites. But while I make mistakes I must not accept my mistakes as ok. I must always hold up God’s perfection as the target to aim for, acknowledging my mistakes and striving for better. That’s being a “good hypocrite”. Those who are satisfied with their mistakes, or try to make others believe that they are perfect when they are not, are bad hypocrites. The scribes and Pharisees were like that, thinking themselves better than others. However, when we are not as good as we should be and we know it, but we ask God to forgive us; when we keep trying and help others as they try also, we are the kind of hypocrites that God loves.

Let us be genuine and humble as we strive every day to be more and more like Jesus.

Dear Lord, help me today to be genuine and humble as I try to be like you and to be perfect as you have commanded me to be, in Jesus’ name, amen.