Message
God hates pretence and hypocrisy. says, “This people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;but their heart is far from me.” Who you are in public is who you should also be in private. tells us that every hidden thing will be manifested, and every secret will be exposed. The Bible also admonishes in that you should let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no’.
Many people appear to be perfect in public; however, their private life is nothing to write home about. In church, they pretend to be prayer warriors. During prayers, their voices are usually the loudest, but when they get home, they do not pray. In , Jesus criticised those who act in such a manner and admonished that, rather than praying in order to be seen, they should enter their closets and pray to their heavenly Father.
Some spouses act in a very obedient and respectful manner towards their husbands or wives whenever they are both in church, but when they get home, they become very disrespectful towards them. If you are one of such people, I implore you today to turn a new leaf.
In , Ananias and Sapphira took their gift to Peter, thinking that they could impress and deceive him; little did they know that the One who sees in secret would reveal their secret. If you are a pretender, one day, everybody will see you for who you truly are. In , when the Pharisees and Scribes dragged the woman caught in adultery to Jesus, they didn’t know that they were coming before the One who knew all their secret faults. They thought that they were exposing the woman, not knowing that they were also exposing themselves. What they thought would be a public execution became a public revelation of their private sins. When Jesus asked the person who was without sin to cast the first stone, they began to leave the scene one after the other.
It is better to be like the Publican who, in today’s Bible reading, prayed to God in humility. He recognised himself as a sinner, asked for mercy, and was justified. The Pharisee, on the other hand, pretended before the Almighty God, and he went home the same way he came. Beloved, God will always help the sincere, but His mercy will be far from the pretenders.