Appearances Aren't Everything

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Listen while you read: "Break Thou The Bread Of Life"1  (Lyrics)

Matthew 23:27 – What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees. Hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs — beautiful on the outside but filled on the inside with dead people's bones and all sorts of impurity. (NLT)

"Come, look at this," my wife said.

Gardening is in my blood. I suppose that I inherited it from my two grandfathers who farmed. When spring comes, I want to plunge my fingers and hands into the dirt and plant vegetables and flowers.

I've lived in some places where gardening came easily. I had areas in the yard that were tillable and received enough sun to grow plants. But for one four-year stretch, we lived in an unsuitable-for-gardening patio townhome. Four crepe myrtle trees lounged in our backyard, and the neighbour's larger crepe myrtle overshadowed ours. Only a couple of hours of sunlight ever reached the yard.

I tried gardening anyway. Nothing except a few cucumbers produced. Our last year in this home, I tried one more time — a single tomato plant designed to grow in a pot. It had two small tomatoes on it when I bought it, but apparently no more until the hottest part of the summer, when I gave up on it and stopped watering it, letting the vine die.

Then, one day, my wife called me to the window. Hanging at the top of the shriveled vine, I saw it: one small red tomato. Although it looked dead, evidently enough life existed to produce one small tomato.

Appearances don't always tell the truth. They didn't with the religious authorities of Jesus' day — the ones He wrangled with on more than one occasion, even calling them hypocrites — a serious charge. Jesus compared them to graves with pretty headstones. Jesus knew what lay in the hearts of most of those religious leaders: death.

No matter how hard we might try to avoid it, what's on our inside will emerge on the outside. How we think and feel will come out through actions and words. Jesus wants both to match, but the only way that can happen is for the inside to be clean.

Jesus washes our insides through forgiveness, but we must keep them clean by spending time with Him daily, and by nurturing the faith that He gives us with spiritual disciplines like meditation on God's Word, prayer, and hanging out with other believers.

Hypocrisy is a common charge made against Christians. We don't want our names to be added to that list, and we sure don't want to stain God's name. There are many techniques that we can try in order to keep up good appearances, but they are useless if our actions belie them. We should make sure that our actions keep up our good name as Christians.

When we nurture love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, they will appear on our outside in ways that benefit others.

What are some ways to let our actions tell others who we are?

Prayer: Father, help us to let our actions and attitudes reflect our walk with You. Amen.

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About the author:

Martin Wiles <mandmwiles@gmail.com>
Greenwood, South Carolina, USA
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