ARE YOU FOR REAL? ~ EXPOSING HYPOCRISY ~Part 4

Is this person for real? That’s a question I might ask myself when someone has just done or said something very surprising. I might actually say aloud: Man, are you for real? meaning, “Wow, you’re not all there!” This person standing in front of me is not an illusion. He really exists in flesh and bones. I can see him, hear him, or reach out and touch him. We sometimes say things like, “Can you get serious? This is for real.” In other words—this is the real deal, genuine, or actually the case.

 

How many times in my life have I thought: Christianity would be easy if I didn’t have to deal with people. Maybe you’ve thought the same. There’s a reason God told His children that not only are we to love Him with all our heart, soul, and mind, but what? We are to love our neighbor as ourselves. Loving our neighbor as we love ourselves proves our love for Him. We are to love our neighbor as we already are born loving ourselves. Many people in our world today will throw the yellow flag onto the field at that statement. Indignantly, they whine, “I hate myself. I have a low self-esteem. I have to learn to love myself before I can love others.” If you believe that, Beloved, you have bought a terrible lie that comes straight from the pit of hell. (Even when we have a self-pity party proclaiming that we have a low self-esteem and hate ourselves, we are masking our proud egos because in that statement, we’re still focused on…you got it! Ourselves!)

 

We are born loving ourselves. How many babies wait patiently in the crib for mother and father to get the sleep they deserve while lying in a wet diaper or with a rumbling belly? No, babies are born wanting their felt needs met with no thought of anything else. And they are very verbal in letting us know! But physical babes aren’t the only ones who live to get their felt needs met. So, how is one to love God with her whole being and her neighbor AS she loves herself? She can’t. Only God loves like this. For one to even have the desire to love like that, she must be born again…born from above…born of the Spirit of God. When God saves, He gives a new heart with new desires that long for righteousness and to glorify God, not self.

 

MOST relationships in my life have started out really well. Whether it is because I was born naïve or a people pleaser, I try to get along with everyone. (Some I have to try harder than others! I’m certain many have said the same about me.) But how many times have I met someone, instantly hit it off with her only later to find myself thinking, ‘Are you for real?’ when she surprises me. What happened? Her mask slipped. First impressions are rarely a complete portrait of the one who stands before us in any initial encounter. While we are getting to know someone better, whether we consciously know it or not, we are discerning whether or not that person is who she says she is. Let’s face it—we’ve all felt betrayed a time or two by someone who turns out not to be who they pretended to be, someone who wears many different masks.

 

There used to be an advertising slogan, “Is it real or is it Memorex?” Only baby boomers would understand. Memorex made cassette recording tapes, and this company wanted their customers to know that their cassettes made recordings so clear that it would be difficult for the listener to tell if they were listening to an actual conversation or performance rather than a playback. Whenever someone used one of their cassettes, they weren’t usually trying to trick anyone…but then there was Kevin in Home Alone—I’m just sayin…

 

We’ve all heard of PhotoShop. Same idea used to trick our visual senses. Young ladies grow up wanting to be like supermodels or actresses whose public photos have been purposely retouched for better aesthetics. For real, I mean who’s going to buy a magazine if the cover model has a large zit on her chin? Nobody is perfect all the time, but we are being led to believe or tricked into believing that it is possible. I’m not saying this is necessarily bad or always wrong. Anyone who has a smartphone has no doubt tweaked a photo they took with their camera to make it more visually pleasing to their eyes and those of their social media audience. But we must always keep in the back of our minds that things aren’t always as they seem as we continue to discern between what is ‘real’ and what is not.

 

There is One who is 100% genuine, authentic, and the measure of all that is truth. Because He is the standard of righteousness, He can see what we miss in others and in ourselves when we rationalize and try to deceive ourselves that we are what we are not. Remember 2 Corinthians 13:5? Test yourselves to see if you are in the faith; examine yourselves! Or do you not recognize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you—unless indeed you fail the test? When Jesus sees your heart, He either sees Himself or just you. The world may think they see Jesus in you, and they can be wrong. You may think Jesus lives in you, that you know Him, but you can be wrong. So, how do we know for certain?

 

In Matthew 7:21-23, Jesus says, “Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven will enter.  Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name cast out demons, and in Your name perform many miracles?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; LEAVE ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’”

 

Jesus is describing religious hypocrites, those who profess and maybe even appear to love and serve God. Those who may say, “I go to church, I serve in the church, I pray, I try to be kind and love everyone.” Jesus is speaking here to the religious elite. Nobody in the world would question their ‘religiousness’. What was the average man standing in the midst of these high, holy, rolling elite thinking? Wow! What does this say about me? If the religious elite were getting such a scathing rebuke, what hope is there for the average congregant? This language would never be tolerated today by anyone! But it is the language and heart of God Himself.

 

Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord…’ Many will say to Me on that day… First, there are multitudes of people who call Jesus ‘Lord’. Let that sink in. Not everyone who does so will enter the kingdom of heaven, Jesus says. It is ‘the one who does the will of My Father who is in heaven.’ It is the one who DOES the will of God. The confusion for some comes in the very next sentence. Many will call Him ‘Lord’ on that day and try to back up their profession by telling Him all they did in His name. They prophesied (means ‘to speak forth’ which can include teaching and preaching), they cast out demons, and performed many miracles. What does Jesus say in response to those lofty achievements, all things that seem to be part of His good will? I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; LEAVE ME, YOU WHO PRACTICE LAWLESSNESS.’” Huh?

 

Sometimes hypocrites are easy to discern. However, when it comes to spiritual matters of the heart, hypocrites are not always so obvious. They are busy doing things that appear religious or spiritual, to be sure. Hypocrites call Jesus ‘Lord’, which implies that He has the authority to make a call to obedience and expect it to be carried out, but they do not do it. Notice they are busy doing the showy things that would draw attention to themselves rather than God. What is the bottom line? Jesus says, “I never knew you.” He doesn’t go into a dissertation about how works can’t justify them, making them right with God. On judgment day He will only say to them, “I never knew you.” They may have thought they knew Him, but He says He didn’t know them. He never had an intimate personal relationship with them. To know Him is to obey Him out of love for Him.

 

The word ‘depart’ or ‘leave’ has the sense of moving away from a point with emphasis upon separation and possible lack of concern for what has left. To depart in the sense of desert or abandon. The tense of the verb Jesus uses indicates the commanded separation is forever.

 

They professed to have practiced a lot of good works in His name. He says what they practiced was lawlessness. Practice is a way of life or something done habitually. They walked contrary to God’s law. How? They rejected God’s Law just by living for their own self-centered, flesh-driven desires. Christ was not the center of their life. True believers are in a state of awareness of living in Christ’s presence asking, “What would He have me do, say, or think in this situation?” It is understanding that my life is not my own and that I am living for the sole purpose of God’s glory. One who practices lawlessness is a law unto himself. He may know what the Bible says but insists on doing things his own way. They are like Cain who knew how God required him to worship but chose to do things his own way. The Cains of the world will be singing, “I did it my way,” all the way to hell.

 

On the other side of the coin are those who live like the devil but are certain they are saved because they have faith. They have ‘believed’ something that has made them sure they will spend eternity in heaven. So, there are hypocrites who do a lot of spiritual works but who will find themselves in hell one day. There are also hypocrites who looked just like the world but professed to believe who will also find themselves there. This is where things can get confusing for some. Is one saved by works or by faith? It’s really an age-old controversy within Christendom. Scripture, however, is clear. One is saved by faith in Christ. The evidence of that salvation are the works that one could never do in his or her own flesh and would never even have the desire to do.

James 2:14-26 The evidence of genuine faith will be seen in our works. James says that faith, if it has no works, is dead, being by itself. Multitudes of people down through time have said they believe in God. James says that you do well if you believe that God is one. However, he says that the demons also believe, and shudder. Demons believe in God. They know He is real. Demons believe, but they are evil. Demons do the evil deeds of Satan in the world.

 

Later in this portion of Scripture James asks: Was not Abraham our father justified by works when he offered up Isaac his son on the altar? If James had stopped there, we could be very confused taking that Scripture out of context from the rest of what we know from the Bible’s teaching on genuine faith. James has already said that salvation is a gift of God in Chapter 1. James 1:17-18  In Ephesians 2:8,9 Paul says: For by grace you have been saved through faith; and this is not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not a result of works, so that no one may boast. James goes on to say: You see that faith was working with his works, and as a result of the works, faith was perfected; and the Scripture was fulfilled which says, “AND ABRAHAM BELIEVED GOD, AND IT WAS RECKONED TO HIM AS RIGHTEOUSNESS,” and he was called the friend of God. You see that a man is justified by works and not by faith alone (verses 22-24). Faith without works is dead.

 

The Almighty will judge the deeds done in this life because our works reflect what we value. We do what we want to do; we act according to our desires. Wrong desires that lead to wrong deeds confirm the fact that hearts are wicked. Those who don’t stand in His presence perfectly righteous are headed for an eternity apart from Him. The words, “Depart from Me…I never knew you,” will echo in the minds of those who were a law unto themselves for all eternity.

Excerpt from Living Beneath the Tapestry and Within the Veil ~ Karla Podlucky

 

Jesus knows whether you are for real. Do you?