“Maybe at this point you think I’m being too tough on people who fake it. Perhaps you think that Jesus wouldn’t feel this way. If you believe that is true, then I would ask you to reconsider the New Testament, particularly the conversations Jesus had with religious leaders of the day.”
Based on yesterday’s article on Being born into a “Christian Family” and hating it – it seems appropriate to put up at least one more quote on the topic.
The one above is from Be Real: Because being fake is exhausting – by Rick Bezet.
Here’s the context within which the title quote appears.
“Being real is natural for kids, and they notice when adults are real and when they’re faking it. When we grow older, however, and especially after we’ve been a Christian for a long time, we tend to begin to cultivate a mask. I’m sorry to say that many people, instead of becoming more welcoming and more concerned for others, drift to a style of Christianity that few could find attractive. Fake becomes their default setting. Real becomes something that seems too scary, too vulnerable, too unnerving. The result may be that we lose our childlike faith.
Maybe at this point you think I’m being too tough on people who fake it. Perhaps you think that Jesus wouldn’t feel this way. If you believe that is true, then I would ask you to reconsider the New Testament, particularly the conversations Jesus had with religious leaders of the day.
Jesus spent a lot of his time pointing out the fakeness of the Pharisees and scholars around him. He repeatedly and consistently used harsh language and bold, direct confrontations to get their attention. Check out Matthew 23, an entire chapter of dialogue Jesus directed at the Pharisees and other religious leaders. After you read it, you may actually think I’m too mild in my approach!”
If you’re not familiar with, or don’t remember, Matthew 23 – here’s how it starts off.
Mt 23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples: 2 “The teachers of the law and the Pharisees sit in Moses’ seat. 3 So you must obey them and do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
I need to point out something though. While Jesus said that the people must obey the teachers of the law and Pharisees (the religious leaders) because they sit in Moses seat – you also see an implication in that statement. It appears that the religious leaders taught correctly, but lived and acted according to a different set of rules.
That Jesus cares about the people is evident in the last two paragraphs of Matthew 23 –
Mt 23:33 “You snakes! You brood of vipers! How will you escape being condemned to hell? 34 Therefore I am sending you prophets and wise men and teachers. Some of them you will kill and crucify; others you will flog in your synagogues and pursue from town to town. 35 And so upon you will come all the righteous blood that has been shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah son of Berekiah, whom you murdered between the temple and the altar. 36 I tell you the truth, all this will come upon this generation.
Mt 23:37 “O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing. 38 Look, your house is left to you desolate. 39 For I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’’”
Jesus calls the religious leaders – who are not properly caring for the people they are leading – He calls them snakes and vipers.
Jesus tells the people that he wants to gather them together with Him – and uses the example of a mother hen protecting her chicks under her wings.
There’s another statement in Luke that I want to include –
Lk 11:52 “Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.”
So – Jesus does care about you and wants to know you.
Please – if you’re in a position where the leader(s) of your church are are like the ones above – don’t let them stop you from knowing Him.
Just as we shouldn’t make up God in our image,
we shouldn’t listen to someone else’s false image of Jesus.
Look at this –
While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew’s house, many tax collectors and “sinners” came and ate with him and his disciples. 11 When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?”
Mt 9:12 On hearing this, Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13 But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Tax collectors were considered by other Jews to be traitors – since they worked for the Romans and cheated their Jewish “brothers” on top of it.
And yet both the Jewish “sinners” and the tax collectors wanted to be with Him – and the religious leaders were not happy about it.
If you’re not getting to know Jesus because of some religious leaders – you should probably ask yourself –
“what did those sinners and tax collectors know that I don’t know? And how do I get to know this Jesus?”