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Our Looks Can Be Deceiving

While working for a major gas pipeline company back in the 1990’s, I and a coworker became good friends. After he retired, we still kept in contact with one another. One day he told me he was about 40 pounds overweight and that he had decided to exercise in order to loose those pounds. After loosing the weight, he went to his heart doctor for a checkup. After an examination, the doctor told him that as far as he could determine, he was in great shape and to not come back to see him for five years. My friend even told me that he felt better than he had in years.

Two weeks later in the early morning hours, my friend died of a heart attack. The autopsy revealed that he had a 90-percent blockage in two of three coronary arteries, and as a result, had sustained a blood clot in one of his arteries. His appearance misled several folks into thinking he was physically healthy.

Similarly, Jesus said that appearances can deceive people into thinking that they are spiritually healthy. After the Pharisees accused Him and His followers of breaking religious traditions by not washing their hands before they ate, Jesus said that the Pharisees had laid aside commands of God for man-made, religious traditions (Matthew 15:1-6). He reminded them that kingdom righteousness was not an outside-in job but an inside-out, transforming work of God through His powerful Word (Matthew 15:16-20; John 7:17; Romans 1:16; Romans 12:1-2).

Jesus said that they looked impressive spiritually, but their hearts were diseased and distant:

“These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, but their heart is far from Me” (Matthew 15:8).

Their talk never matched their walk, thus producing an illegitimate child of hypocrisy.

Brethren and friends, our spiritual health is not determined by how we look or even how we feel, but by how we live before God (2 Corinthians 10:17-18). Let’s ask God to search us, know our hearts, test us, and then lead us in His way (Psalm 139:23-24; cf. Psalm 5:8).

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