Woe to you scribes and Pharisees. You are hypocrites! You wash clean the outside of your cups and dishes. But inside they are full of what you got by cheating others and pleasing yourselves.”  -Matthew 23:26

 

Jesus then went on to say in verses 27-28:  “You’re hopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re like manicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but six feet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh. People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.

 

Have you ever done dishes quickly, only later to find the outside of the glass was clean, but the inside was still dirty? This very thing happened to me the other day.  It made me get to thinking…especially about myself.

 

I’m saved, yes  I try my best to live like I’m saved.  But most times during the week, I fall.  I mess up.  Like one of my old friends used to say, “I almost fall from grace…”  

 

We all know that you CANNOT fall from God’s grace, but sometimes our actions and words look like we have.  But oh on Sunday morning when we gather at church-we look so holy in our Sunday best, a big smile on our face-even to MS. so and so that we can’t stand!  She shakes our hand and all kinds of bad thoughts run through our heads.  As soon as she walks away, we run for the sanitizer…after all, we think we’re better than her and we don’t want to get ‘contaminated’ by her sin.

 

But Jesus said, “And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?  How can you think of saying to your friend, ‘Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?  Hypocrite! First get rid of the log in your own eye; then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye. -Matthew 7:3-5  All these verses mean is this:  Look at your own sin!  See your own faults!  Stop worrying about the faults of others and take care of your own!  

 

YOU will be judged for your own sin, not for someone else’s.  Clean not only the outside of your life, but the inside as well! 

 

Let’s all check our hearts.  Let’s take our sin and shortcomings to God in prayer and ask for forgiveness.  Let’s let God sweep OUR heart clean before we try to clean up someone else’s heart 

 

Psalm 139:23-24 –Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! And see if there be any grievous way in me,   and lead me in the way everlasting!