Thoughts From the Bible

Read Luke 11: 37- 44-   Jesus wanted the people to be sensitive to the condition of their hearts. He showed this in the previous passage as He spoke about His light within them. Jesus exposes more in this passage as He addresses the Pharisees and scribes, '(39) The Lord said to him, "Now you Pharisees make the outside of the cup and dish clean, but your inward part is full of greed and wickedness."'   This gives me reason to examine my own motives as I work to be a better Christian. Are my motives pure or am I manipulating situations to make my own life better? I need to work to avoid being like the Pharisees and be honest with myself and work to have a better heart .      Proverbs 14:20- The poor man is hated even by his own neighbor, but the rich have many friends.      

Matthew 23: 15-   There are many things we can do that honors God. Many Christians do acts of service or even dedicate their lives to working for Christ.  What are their motivations? Are they focused singularly on what they feel the Holy Spirit is directing them  to   do ? Are they working to follo w in someone else’s footsteps? Are they working to draw attention to themselves? What are their motivations?  The Pharisees would work  very hard  to have others accept the trad itional Jewish religion. For many of these Pharisees, the motivation for the Pharisees proselytizing was  to gain a higher standing for themselves, not to bring others into a closer relationship with God. Jesus knew this. This is what Jesus said in verse 15,  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves.”  The...