Dirty Cups

Jesus loves me, this I know.
For the Bible tells me so.
Little ones to Him belong.
They are weak, but He is strong.
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
Yes, Jesus loves me!
The Bible tells me so.

My favorite song of all time. So simply true, and yet so profound. Everything you need to know is in that song. Jesus loves me. Jesus loves you.

This morning I read Matthew 23. I encourage you to read it sometime today. In this chapter Jesus spends some time talking about the Pharisees. And it's hard to "feel the love" in His words about these people. He did love them, but He surely didn't love their behavior. He described them as:

... people who "say, and do not." (Matthew 23:3)
... people who do their works "to be seen of men." (Matthew 23:5)
... people who are "hypocrites" (Matthew 23:14)

He said over and over, "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites!" (vs. 14,15,16,23,27,29)

There are many today who could be described as Pharisees. Put simply, a Pharisee is somebody with an outward form of religion that is not a result of real inward change. They are professors, but not possessors.

Jesus gives some wonderful truth in this chapter about how to avoid being a Pharisee. "You are so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you are filthy-full of greed and self-indulgence! Blind Pharisees! First wash the inside of the cup, and then the outside will become clean, too." (Matthew 23:25-26 NLT) Think about the last time you washed dishes by hand. You don't worry too much about the outside of a cup when washing it, do you? You concentrate on the inside, and as you wash that, the outside just takes care of itself - it's clean, and you didn't need to do much with it.

So with we human beings. If we concentrate on the inside - our relationship and walk with God, it will affect the outside. We'll be cleaned up both in and out.

Is the inside of the cup clean, my friend? Here is the first step in making sure it is.