Thursday, July 2
Read: Luke 11
“See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you.”
What is this “darkness” Jesus is talking about? What is the “light”?
Woe: grievous distress, affliction, or trouble or in this case, a cry for God’s just judgment in light of an action that deserves a divine response.
Jesus goes onto to “woe” the Pharisees and Scribes. What were the six woes cast unto them? What tone of voice do you think Jesus was using?
The Pharisees and Scribes thought they had it. They were convinced they were clean and righteous before God because they followed all the rules. But Jesus point outs to them that their hearts are dirty and ill-intentioned. Calling them “unmarked graves” was probably the worst insult they could have received. For Jews, a dead body was not something to be touched. If touched, they would be unclean and made to go through the purification rituals. Jesus was basically calling them dead bodies, meaning that anyone who comes across them becomes unclean.
Who of you would eat off a plate that appeared to be clean but under careful observation noticed it still had chunks of food stuck to it? Or pulling a glass out of the cupboard, noticing it had lipstick marks on the rim, would still drink out of it? Germs abound in these things causing you to get sick. This is what these passages are talking about. Appearing clean, but in reality is dirty.
Sin, whether seen or unseen by men, is dirty and when it’s in our lives it causes the rest of us to be dirty. Jesus makes it clear that we need to be living lives of integrity. Making sure we practice what we preach in front of others and behind closed doors.
God is all about purity of heart. Condemning the Pharisees and Scribes about hypocrisy is something Jesus did a lot of. Why do you think this mattered to Jesus so much? When someone, maybe an elder, tells you to do one thing but turns around and does the opposite, how does that make you feel?
Look up these next couple scriptures and spend some time discussing them.
1 Samuel 16:7, Jeremiah 17:9, Psalm 19:1 and 23:3-4, Matthew 6:21 and 12:33-35
Process:
– Where is your heart at right now? When you serve are you serving to be recognized by others or by God?
– Where do you see hypocrisy in the world? In your church? In your own lives?
– If we want to keep our hearts pure we must put only good things into it and not bad. What are some things of this world that would make our hearts unclean? What do we need to put into our hearts to keep them pure? Read Psalm 119:9-16. Meditate on this and pray it into your lives