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Consider This: Fake is not Enough

 

               One Sunday night, as I walked through the church building, I looked up and saw a guy from my Bible college days.  We were not particularly friendly back then.  Acquaintances more than anything.

               “How are you, Tim?” he asked as he smiled, shook my hand and patted me on the shoulder.  “It is so good to see you!”  When I asked what he was doing in Estevan, he replied that he was visiting family in the area.  Then he said, “Hey, if you have time tomorrow, I would love to go for lunch with you!”  I remember thinking, “Wow!  This is an unprecedented display of affection”.  As I said, he had never been this friendly before.

               At lunch, we small-talked for a while, and then he said, “Hey, have you ever thought about getting a second job?  I have this opportunity I want to tell you about…”.  He was in a pyramid scheme and wanted to sign me up.  That was thirty-four years ago, and to this day, I still remember the feeling I had when I realized that my newfound best friend was all just a show.

               Fake does not work in friendships, and it does not work in spiritual matters either.  Jesus’ most harsh words were not directed at those whose lives were a mess.  Instead, they were reserved for those who acted religious, but really were not. “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean” (Matthew 23:27).  Note the word “hypocrite”.  This is the Greek word for an actor.  They acted clean and good, but, just below the surface, they were something completely different.

               The goal of Jesus’ death, burial and resurrection was not to give us a chance to try harder and look better on the outside.  The goal was to have a new life and be radically changed from the inside out.  God’s offer is that he will do away with our old, sinful lives and allow us to live and walk by his Spirit within us (Galatians 5:16-25).

               Jesus came so that we might have life, and have it more abundantly (John 10:10).

               Fake is not enough. 

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