17 April - Confession

I have to confess something – I’m a hypocrite.  It’s the one thing always used against Christians isn’t it – that we aren’t the people we claim to be.  That we aren’t ourselves what we expect of others.  And I’m afraid I’m not.

For example, I tell myself that people who want revenge and punishment for those who hurt them are vengeful.  You need to be forgiving I say.   Then I turn into a growly bear when someone so much as pushes my child in the playground.  I tell people the church is a family, here through thick or thin.  Then I meet someone whose personality I struggle with and I want a different family.

It is scary to consider the depths of my own hypocrisies.  Especially when I read Matthew 23 where Jesus strongly criticises the Pharisees saying over and over again, “What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites!” (verse 13).

And yet, I’ve been wondering if my inability to be who I claim to be – who I want to be – is a part of something deeper than this.  Surely a true hypocrite would be more comfortable in their fraud then I am?  Maybe it’s not fraud at all, maybe it’s human failing – a failure to be how I truly wish to be.  A failure to be like Christ when I have the Holy Spirit’s knowledge of what that ought to look like.

At the end of the book or Joshua he tells the people of Israel –

 “ ‘So fear the LORD and serve him wholeheartedly. Put away forever the idols your ancestors worshiped when they lived beyond the Euphrates River and in Egypt. Serve the LORD alone.  But if you refuse to serve the LORD, then choose today whom you will serve. Would you prefer the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates? Or will it be the gods of the Amorites in whose land you now live? But as for me and my family, we will serve the LORD.’ ”

- Joshua 24 v 14 -15

And the people say “We would never abandon the LORD and serve other gods.” (verse 16).  But of course they do.  In the very next generation and then over and over again. 

You see, I am nothing new, my failure is nothing unique.  And I will die because of this failure.  But that’s not the end of my story.  God has promised me He will love me, accept me, and give me life again, despite my human failure.  My hypocrisy.  And for that reason I strive afresh, today, to be the person I claim to be – a member of God’s family.  I choose today to serve Him.