Quote from Forum Archives on February 16, 2011, 11:37 am

Posted by: edwrather <edwrather@...>

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The Burning Bush Devotional
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02.16.11

The Pretenders

And the chief priests and the scribes that very hour sought to lay hands on
Him, but they feared the people - for they knew He had spoken this parable
against them. So they watched Him, and sent spies who pretended to be
righteous, that they might seize on His words, in order to deliver Him to
the power and the authority of the governor. Then they asked Him, saying,
"Teacher, we know that You say and teach rightly, and You do not show
personal favoritism, but teach the way of God in truth: Is it lawful for us
to pay taxes to Caesar or not?" - Luke 20:19-22.

There is a new book soon to be published about Bernard Madoff written by
Diana Henriques. The name of the book is "The Wizard of Lies: Bernie Madoff
and the Death of Trust." The entire scheme of Bernie Madoff was built on
lies, on pretense. According to the new book, Madoff claims that the banks
and hedge funds knew the truth, and they pretended to believe the lies too.
According to Madoff, the attitude of the banks and hedge funds was sort of,
"If you're doing something wrong, we don't want to know." Of course, we have
to remember that the title of the book is, "The Wizard of Lies." (Fox News,
February 16, 2011)

The chief priests and the scribes wanted to trap Jesus and they sent out
spies who pretended to be "righteous." The spies pretended to be something
that they were not. Have you ever done that? Pretended to be something that
you are not? This is perhaps the most pervasive sin of Christians today. The
sin of hypocrisy. Pretending to be "righteous" about everything we do, and
pretending to be perfect when we know that we are far from perfection.

Not only do we try to deceive others about our "righteousness" - we also try
to fool God. We think that if we can only act like we are perfect, seem like
we are perfect; then this will be enough to please God. Do you think that
the spies sent by the chief priests and scribes were able to fool Jesus?
Here is what happened: "But He perceived their craftiness, and said to them,
'Why do you test Me? Show Me a denarius. Whose image and inscription does it
have?' They answered and said, 'Caesar's.' And He said to them, 'Render
therefore to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that
are God's.' But they could not catch Him in His words in the presence of the
people. And they marveled at His answer and kept silent (Luke 20:23-26)."

Bernie Madoff was a hypocrite, pretending to offer a real investment
opportunity when all he really had to offer was lies. The spies of the chief
priests and scribes were pretenders, hypocrites, pretending to be
"righteous" when they were not. When we pretend that we are without sin we
are hypocrites, and we make it appear that God is a liar. In 1 John 1:8-10
we are told this: "If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and
the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to
forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say
that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."

What are Christians? We are sinners saved by grace. "In Him we have
redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the
riches of His grace (Ephesians 1:7)." Instead of spending all of our efforts
and energy pretending to be something that we on our own can never be, as in
"righteous - Ephesians 2:8-9" - instead, let us commit our lives to becoming
more and more "conformed" to the "image" of Jesus Christ (Romans 8:29).

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