From my Pastors desk.
And as He spoke, a certain Pharisee asked Him to dine with him. So He went in and sat down to eat. When the Pharisee saw it, he marveled that He had not first washed before dinner. Then the Lord said to Him, “Now you Pharisees make outside of the cup and dish clean, but you inward part is full of greed and wickedness. Foolish ones! Did not He who made the outside make the inside also?
Wow, what a lesson we can learn from what the Lord Jesus said to the Pharisee!
We can put on our best outside appearance, our best smile, say the right things, go through all manner of motions, playing church, playing Christians, but God Almighty, the One who created us knows the real us. He doesn’t want us to just go through the motions faking our way through everything in order to make people think that we are more righteous and holy than we truly are.
When we going through the motions, or play church instead of being real, we are showing that we have either forgotten, or have chosen to ignore the fact that God wants us to serve Him sincerely with a genuine heart of reverent love and appreciation . He deserves that from us in every area of our lives all the time.
Its important to recognize the difference between saying and doing things to sound or look mature in the Lord, and actually maturing in the Lord which motivates us into truly serving Him.