SMACK list

i love my time in the mornings alone with God, my bible, and my journal. It is the source to my survival throughout the day!

this morning i was wide awake way earlier than i should have of been for going to bed so late. i knew it must have been Him waking me up ready to show me something. i went to my spot opening His words to read where i had left off yesterday.

Over a month ago i felt God reveling to me that i needed to read through Jesus' life and write down everything that Jesus did (all His actions, how He showed love) and all of His thoughts.

So i found my self in Matthew 22:24-40 which talks about the 2 greatest things we need to get in order to get life and Matthew 23:1-26 which talks about the religious leaders. So i started to list out Jesus' description of these "religious leaders" of His time.

Religious Leaders (official interpreters and teachers of God's law) look like:

• they don't practice what they preach
• they crush people with unbearable religious demands and "rules" and never lift a finger to ease the burden of these "rules"
• everything they do is to show off or show others how good they are
• they love to sit at the head of the table or seats of honor, they love to be exalted or honored by man
• they shut the door to the Kingdom of Heaven in people's faces
• they don't even go into the door themselves
• they cross land and see to make a "convert" then they teach them to be twice the hypocrite they are.
• they are more concerned about their fancy religious buildings than they are of the God that makes something/someone holy.
• they are more concerned with the gifts given to God than God whom the gifts are for.
• they are careful to tithe on everything they earn and receive but they ignore the most important aspects of God's law - Justice, Mercy, and Faith.
• they cheat the poor then pretend to know God by making long prayers in public.
• they are careful to APPEAR holy but inside they are filthy, full of greed and SELF-INDULGENCE!
• on the outside they appear like people that do good and are right but inwardly their hearts are filled with hypocrisy and lawlessness.
• they remember publicly the profits and martyrs of long ago that were obviously people sent by God. yet it was their ancestors, religious people like them that murdered and persecuted them.

While Jesus was describing them he said to them... "Woe to you, what sorrow awaits you! Hypocrites!"

Jesus told the crowds, "Don't follow them, Don't tell people what they preach, Don't obey what they teach, Don't think they are better....we are all equal, Don't call them father or teacher... you only have one "teacher,father" and that is Me. "

He also said how we can be like Him and not them, "If you want to be the greatest be a servant, a person who serves is the 'greatest'. Those who humble themselves will be exalted, those who exalt themselves will be humbled. First be concerned with the inside and wash it... then the outside will become clean too."

The question that came in to my mind after all of this and all that He has been showing me all year is..... which do i look more like? Like Jesus, the disciples, or the religious leaders?

SMACK!! Only God knows what's in our hearts! Our we really like Jesus?

Jesus, make me more like you, i want to love, serve and be like YOU!!!!