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Gospel Reading for August 27, 2024 – Matthew 23: 23-26
USE GOD
Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.”
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Jesus continues his tirade against the scribes and Pharisees. Hypocrisy is AT ITS BEST when we USE GOD to make ourselves look very good before others when we really are not. This is because everything that is attributed to God is good. Nothing bad can come from God because he is the source of all goodness. The worst thing about the scribes and Pharisees was that they made the practice of religion superficial and burdensome, therefore, making God himself superficial and a source of burden.
If we bear the name Christian, and yet do not live like Christ and do not have the real attributes of Christ, WOE TO US! As Jesus said in Matthew 18: 6,8-9: ““Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea . . . If your hand or foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life maimed or crippled than with two hands or two feet to be thrown into eternal fire. And if your eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to enter into life with one eye than with two eyes to be thrown into fiery Gehenna.”
What a TRAGEDY to be banished to eternal fire with Satan, bearing the name of Christ!
“A clean heart create for me, God; renew in me a steadfast spirit. Do not drive me from your presence, nor take from me your holy spirit.” (Psalm 51: 12-13)
