Friday, August 8, 2014

The Great Pretender


Read: Matthew 23:23-28

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness.                                        Matthew 23:27 

     The 1955 hit song, “The Great Pretender,” was recorded by a group called the Platters. The song speaks of a man who is lonely in love but lives his life pretending as if everything is just fine. Perhaps because so many people could relate, the song made it to number one atop several music charts of the day.
     Many Christian young people live their lives the same way that the young man in the song spoke of his love life. They know exactly how they are supposed to act because they have been in church as long as they can remember. They know what is expected of them, so they conform outwardly. The inside, however, is far from being what is should be; yet it is what is on the inside that is most important because it is what they really are. The private life is what matters – who you are when nobody is looking. The men that most would consider unable to fall often fall prey to Satan’s devices because what everyone thinks them to be by watching them outwardly is not who they really are inwardly.
     Consider two examples. Judas was a disciple of Jesus. When Jesus announced that one of His own would betray Him, several of the disciples asked the Lord if they were the ones who would betray Him. They didn’t automatically point the finger at Judas, sure that He was the one that would turn Jesus over to the Jews. They doubted themselves more than they doubted Judas. That means that Judas was an upstanding, good-looking person on the outside; his actions later that night proved that he was someone completely different than what he portrayed. Jesus, on the other hand, was the same on the inside as He was on the outside. He said He was against sin, and His thirty-three years of life on this earth proved His point.
     You cannot have fellowship with Jesus if you are not right in the area where He sees you – the inside. Would you take things into your life that Jesus would not approve of if He were standing there with you? You must remember that, though you cannot see Him in bodily form, He is with you always. He sees each action, knows each thought, and hears each spoken word. The private life is what really matters. Do people see the real you when they see you outwardly, or are you a great pretender?


Quote of the day: “To fake it is to stand guard over emptiness.” – Arthur Herzog






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