ESOCS Devotional 17 August 2023 – Cleaning the Outside
MEMORY VERSE: “Then 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.” Luke 11:39-40 NKJV
TEXT: LUKE 11:37-44 (KJV)
And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. 38 When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner.
39 Then 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. 40 Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also? 41 But rather give alms of such things as you have; then indeed all things are clean to you.
42 “But woe to you Pharisees! For you tithe mint and rue and all manner of herbs, and pass by justice and the love of God. These you ought to have done, without leaving the others undone. 43 Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seats in the synagogues and greetings in the marketplaces. 44 Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like graves which are not seen, and the men who walk over them are not aware of them.”
Read Yesterday’s ESOCS Devotional here
The Word hypocrites rooted from Greek theater and; literally used of an actor means Come into play.
People that say or preach something but act something negatively different; this set of peoples does something acceptable or morally good but in the secret they do something that is immoral. This same word is a march to white sepulcher which has petrifying dead body inside while on the surface it is painted, tiled, marbled or glassy on the surface.
In the text above, the Pharisee preferred that Jesus should wash his hands before eating rather than the privilege of having the son of God in his house.
Now do ye Pharisees make clean the outside of the cup and the platter, but your inward part is full of ravening’s and wickedness so hypocrisy is pretending to be something we no we are not. It is the compliment man that vice pay to virtue ways.
In our contest, a Christian gentle is expected to be categorized with certain qualities and ways of life. But somebody is pretending to be the Christian gentle knowing all the while that he is play acting this is exactly what our long Jesus Christ accused the Pharisees of in Luke 20:20, pretending to be righteous by keeping punctilious little traditions of hand washing out of their houses and violently opposed the only completely religious person who ever lived on planet earth, Christ in that instance demonstrated that Christians have no reason to pretend rather they have every reason to live out the life of Christ who came to teach the world about his father. How to fear him and keep his commandment the deep message passed by Christ Jesus, is that God owns, controls and is in charge of every aspect of the world. As such He is worthy of our outright worship with reverence, humility in the light of his does and don’t. Anything outside that is not accepted by him
Galatians 2 exemplified how Paul accused Peter of hypocrisy for eating with gentle believers but stopped when people came from Jerusalem to avoid being criticized. This was not right.
In summary we as Christians and children of the Most High God are mandated to do and practice the life lived and kept for us by Jesus Christ, as the will of the Father who alone has the power and authority over every aspect of our live in judgment.
- To excuse ourselves from hypocrisy.
- Pray that the infinite God will uplift our heart to rescue evil and all manner of wickedness. Amen.
FURTHER READING: Judges 13:1-end; Ruth 2:14-end; Luke 1:5-38; 11:37- 44
Thank you for reading the ESOCS Devotional today. Please share and follow us on all our platforms to contribute to the spread of the Gospel.
ESOCS Devotional 17 August 2023
