Being Hypocrites

 God hates all kinds of sins, but it seems that God gets especially angry when He sees people being hypocrites. I think there might be two main reasons for His anger against hypocrisy. I believe it angers God when we think that we can pull something over on Him, and He won't see what we are really trying to do. That is absurd. Also, I believe that when we are hypocrites, we are just trying to have things our own way and still be pleasing to God. That just can't happen.

After the leader of the people who had been left in Jerusalem and Judah was killed by the captains of the forces, the leaders came to Jeremiah to ask for prayer and direction on what they should do next. (Jeremiah 42:20) From the very beginning God showed Jeremiah that they were being hypocrites in their hearts. They said that they wanted to know God's will and they would do it, but they were set on doing their own will, all along. It was just a show.

We, as Christians, can be guilty of trying to put on a show, too. We can act one way outwardly, while in our hearts, we feel just the opposite. We can pray to ask God for His will to be shown to us, when we don't really want His will. We are just praying, and maybe hoping that what God says will be what we want. When it is not, we just go our own way. That is being the worst kind of disobedient child of God. He can't bless us. In fact, it causes Him to fight against us, as He fought against the people in Jeremiah's time.  

Instead of being hypocrites, we need to make sure we have pure hearts. We need to cast out our own motives and our own desires. We need to ask the Spirit to give us God's heart, so our motives are God's motives. We need to relinquish trying to get our way, and surrender to God's way. In fact, we should glory in doing things God's way because we know that His way is always best. I pray we will all stay far away from being hypocrites, so we can be pleasing to God.

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Tomorrow, I intend to read Jeremiah 44-46.