But when he saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming to be baptized, he denounced them. "You brood of snakes!" he exclaimed. "Who warned you to flee God's coming judgment? Prove by the way you live that you have really turned from your sins and turned to God. Don't just say, `We're safe--we're the descendants of Abraham.' That proves nothing. God can change these stones here into children of Abraham. Even now the ax of God's judgment is poised, ready to sever your roots. Yes, every tree that does not produce good fruit will be chopped down and thrown into the fire.
Do you want to be counted wise, to build a reputation for wisdom? Here's what you do: Live well, live wisely, live humbly. It's the way you live, not the way you talk, that counts. Mean-spirited ambition isn't wisdom. Boasting that you are wise isn't wisdom. Twisting the truth to make yourselves sound wise isn't wisdom. It's the furthest thing from wisdom—it's animal cunning, devilish conniving. Whenever you're trying to look better than others or get the better of others, things fall apart and everyone ends up at the others' throats.
Real wisdom, God's wisdom, begins with a holy life and is characterized by getting along with others. It is gentle and reasonable, overflowing with mercy and blessings, not hot one day and cold the next, not two-faced. You can develop a healthy, robust community that lives right with God and enjoy its results only if you do the hard work of getting along with each other, treating each other with dignity and honor.
So, my very dear friends, don't get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.
I do not spend time with liars or go along with hypocrites.
Don't pick on people, jump on their failures, criticize their faults— unless, of course, you want the same treatment. That critical spirit has a way of boomeranging. It's easy to see a smudge on your neighbor's face and be oblivious to the ugly sneer on your own. Do you have the nerve to say, 'Let me wash your face for you,' when your own face is distorted by contempt? It's this whole traveling road-show mentality all over again, playing a holier-than-thou part instead of just living your part. Wipe that ugly sneer off your own face, and you might be fit to offer a washcloth to your neighbor.
How can you think of saying, `Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,' when you can't see past the log in your own eye? Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye.
He replied, "Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: " 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
YHWH give me a clean heart. Lord I want to not be two-faced in situations of my lifestyle. Lord you want the heart in everything we do, and Father I need to surrender every aspect of my life to you so I can absolutely-without-a-doubt-undeniably-no-turning-back live for you. King of Kings, I am a hypocritical Pharisee. Jesus, the amount of times I've read your law and not used it as a road map for my whole life. I made excuses saying "I'll just follow these directions from here to here" instead of looking at the whole and in the end I just ended up getting lost. Rescue me Abba, save me from my pride Christ, remind to constantly stop and ask directions so I can continue down the right road. Beautiful One tear off these masks I've created and reveal to the world who I am in you! Only then can your word flow through me Emmanuel. Saviour thank you for your saving grace for redeeming me and declaring me worthy enough to die for. God you are for me, none can stand against you, even my egotiscal pride and selfishness, kill it off. Let your elders declare today that I am sanctified in your presence and unless that holiness in all aspects of my life.
Google's great dictionary services provided me with great defitions of the word God recently revealed to me before I wrote this.
Asymmetry: the depiction in a work of art of two sides as being not identical without impairing the general harmony of the work. Asymmetry is used to prevent a work from appearing static and superficial, as no two sides of a life form are identical.
Lack of balance.
Lack or absence of balanced proportions between parts of a thing.
Got an idea of what the word means? If not well how's this it means all the sides of an object don't match. That's exactly what I've been called on in my life.
I have a great idea of who God is, and what it looks like to be a Christian. At Battle School, Danielle Stricklen gave us a great eye-opening shocker that has stuck ever since, and has been developing ever since I got back. Many times Jesus calls the Pharisee's two-faced. They act that way in the synagogue, but when they leave they become a totally different person. Which in turn makes their prayers not from the heart, it makes their sacrifices ugly, and makes their faces two-sided, wished washed and straight up hypocritical. Usually we go, ya, those Pharisee's they deserved what was coming to them, and it's true, unless they turned from their selfish, hypocritical ways, they sure in fact were not going to be apart of the kingdom. But what is interesting, is that if you compare me to anyone in the scriptures I'm alot like a Pharisee. I know the law, I know what God wants, I have the gifts and the talents for his kingdom, people recognize me as a leader, etc. But even in my own life, I am a hypocrite.
It was really bad before Battle School. I disrespected my parents, used and abused my friends, and was honestly really only looking out for my own interests. Not so much now, that I've started to realize what it looks like to be a Christian in my family life. But school, man that's hard. What does it look like to be a Christian in the school anyway? Sure I made a post about what "actions/outward" signs you could do to be an ideal Christian in school, and that's great in theory, but honestly it's really hard. Your Athiest friends are talking about smoking pot, sex, pornography, or that friend at school who's a real big loser. The list continues, they talk about how school sucks, or swear about this or that, about how they just jacked some guy from his ipod, or even about the latest trend or about Jeni told Cindy who told Sara that Lorean totally flunked yesterday's test. What does it look like to NOT conform and to love everyone. It's so hard, so much easier to just go with the conversation. For me, when I know nothing about the story or have nothing to input from experience, I just fabricate one to look cool. It happens alot. I'm really really good at it. I can trace my roots back to fibbing to my parents about who broke the picture frame. Anyway, as Christ followers, we are called to live the example of Christ in all aspects of our lives.
Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.
This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. And we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers.
That last one might seem strange in this context; but let me reveal to you what God recently layed out about it. Laying down our lives, actually looks like giving up are "easy" life we have around our friends and families and instead taking up Jesus' Cross and boldly living a Christ like life in even those circumstances.
God hasn't called us to do the idiotic, the reward is there, if we want this holiness/sanctification that God has ordained for us, we need to live in Christ.
For in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form, and you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority.
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