I truly have been thinking and reading, trying to think of what to post next, and nothing came to me.  So, I figured I would just keep studying and praying until something else hit me.  Well a few days ago it did, and then this morning when Randy called me up and said, “Read Chapter 23 of Matthew!”  I opened up my Message Bible and did just that.  So this post takes a step back from the Blue Like Jazz book for now, and let’s delve into the topic of Phariseeical attitudes.

I looked up the definition of a Pharisee online and the first thing that pops up is “a self-righteous or sanctimonious person.”  I looked up the definition of “self-righteous,” and came across - “Piously sure of one’s own righteousness; moralistic.” Another definition said, “excessively or hypocritcally pious.” This is a type of person that I certainly do not want to be, and after reading Matthew 23 in The Message I decided for SURE I do not want to BE this type of person or be associated with TYPES of people that act in this way.  Decide for yourself if you see any similarities between these “Pharisees” and some religious leaders we may know.

Matthew 23:
1 Now Jesus turned to address his disciples, along with the crowd that had gathered with them.
2 ”The religion scholars and Pharisees are competent teachers in God’s Law.
3 Youwon’t go wrong in following their teachings on Moses. But be carefulabout following them. They talk a good line, but they don’t live it.They don’t take it into their hearts and live it out in their behavior.It’s all spit-and-polish veneer. 4 ”Instead of giving you God’s Law as food and drinkby which you can banquet on God, they package it in bundles of rules,loading you down like pack animals. They seem to take pleasure inwatching you stagger under these loads, and wouldn’t think of lifting afinger to help.
5 Their lives are perpetual fashion shows, embroidered prayer shawls one day and flowery prayers the next.
6 They love to sit at the head table at church dinners, basking in the most prominent positions,
7 preening in the radiance of public flattery, receiving honorary degrees, and getting called ‘Doctor’ and ‘Reverend.’ 8 ”Don’t let people do that to you, put you on a pedestal like that. You all have a single Teacher, and you are all classmates.
9 Don’tset people up as experts over your life, letting them tell you what todo. Save that authority for God; let him tell you what to do. No oneelse should carry the title of ‘Father’; you have only one Father, andhe’s in heaven.
10 And don’t let people maneuver you into taking charge of them. There is only one Life-Leader for you and them - Christ.
11 ”Do you want to stand out? Then step down. Be a servant.
12 Ifyou puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But ifyou’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty.

Man, verse 4 makes me sick. And verse 5 sounds like some conferences people go to, to see and be seen??

13 ”I’vehad it with you! You’re hopeless, you religion scholars, you Pharisees!Frauds!
14 Your lives are roadblocks to God’s kingdom. You refuse toenter, and won’t let anyone else in either.
15 ”You’re hopeless, you religion scholars andPharisees! Frauds! You go halfway around the world to make a convert,but once you get him you make him into a replica of yourselves,double-damned.

23 ”You’rehopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You keepmeticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, buton the meat of God’s Law, things like fairness and compassion andcommitment - the absolute basics! - you carelessly take it or leave it.Careful bookkeeping is commendable, but the basics are required. 24 Do you have any idea how silly you look, writing alife story that’s wrong from start to finish, nitpicking over commasand semicolons?
25 ”You’re hopeless, you religion scholars andPharisees! Frauds! You burnish the surface of your cups and bowls sothey sparkle in the sun, while the insides are maggoty with your greedand gluttony.
26 Stupid Pharisee! Scour the insides, and then the gleaming surface will mean something.
27 ”You’rehopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You’re likemanicured grave plots, grass clipped and the flowers bright, but sixfeet down it’s all rotting bones and worm-eaten flesh.
28 People look at you and think you’re saints, but beneath the skin you’re total frauds.
29 ”You’rehopeless, you religion scholars and Pharisees! Frauds! You buildgranite tombs for your prophets and marble monuments for your saints.
30 And you say that if you had lived in the days of your ancestors, no blood would have been on your hands.
31 You protest too much! You’re cut from the same cloth as those murderers,
32 and daily add to the death count.
33 ”Snakes! Reptilian sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper?

Randy and I just had a conversation about churches focusing on the tiny things and making them so big, but we let the big character issues go - we don’t deal with the issues of the heart.  Even Jesus himself, dealt on heart issues, not outward things.  Why do we do it?  Doesn’t it seem Phariseeical?

34 It’s onaccount of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides andscholars generation after generation - and generation after generationyou treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding themwith abuse. 35 ”You can’t squirm out of this: Every drop ofrighteous blood ever spilled on this earth, beginning with the blood ofthat good man Abel right down to the blood of Zechariah, Barachiah’sson, whom you murdered at his prayers, is on your head.
36 All this, I’m telling you, is coming down on you, on your generation.
37 ”Jerusalem!Jerusalem! Murderer of prophets! Killer of the ones who brought youGod’s news! How often I’ve ached to embrace your children, the way ahen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you wouldn’t let me.
38 And now you’re so desolate, nothing but a ghost town.
39 Whatis there left to say? Only this: I’m out of here soon. The next timeyou see me you’ll say, ‘Oh, God has blessed him! He’s come, bringingGod’s rule!’”

I wonder is verse 34 could be compared to those that have come with words of change and the church has labeled them as troublemakers, and called them a “false prophet.”

I’m ready to be a catalyst, to allow God to change my mentality and in turn allow me to help me change my world.  Even if it’s one person at a time.

Randy had a sobering thing happen this week.  He was sitting in a truck stop eating dinner by himself, and he saw a group of people a couple tables over talking.  They were talking about church.  The one couple said, “Yeah we are looking for a church.”  The other couple says, “Well good luck finding one, I can tell you one type of church NOT to go to.”  Couple #1 said, “Oh really, what kind?”  Couple #2 said, “Definately NOT the Pentecostal churches!  My wife and I attended there and my wife and kids wanted to be involved with the singing.  They told us we were not allowed because my wife and children’s hair was not long enough to put it up, and that we could not be used of God.”

Randy said his stomach dropped and he felt sick. He wanted to crawl under the table.  This is the type of organization we have been associated with for our whole lives, and we have lived under the mentality that if you don’t match up with the rulebook, you can NOT be used of God.  HOW PHARISEEICAL!  WHO ARE WE to say who can be used of God or not?  We allow people that CAN wear their hair up on our platforms, but little do we know that these people are addicted to pornography or maybe addicted to prescription medication. How can we only focus on the outward and leave the matters of the heart untouched? We have it all backwards!

The statistics are so high for pornography alone - they say 53% of our ministers are ADDICTED to pornography. But yet, if they show up with hair over their ears or collar, we are wagging our tongues about it all week. I am sickened and convicted.  I have spent over twenty years of my entire life thinking I was the only type of Christian making it to Heaven….that others weren’t anointed and used of God because they don’t have the look in place. I am disgusted with myself. And I wonder WHY I have not won others to Christ.  Where is the love - the genuine love and acceptance of the lost irregardless of their look?  Did Jesus EVER say people had to look a certain way to be used of him? If I recall, Jesus used people that did NOT have it together at all.  And who were the first to complain of Jesus’ ways?  The Pharisees.

Who are the first ones to complain when something new comes down the pike?  Something that convicts the way we are doing things, something that inspires change.  They are troublemakers, and not anointed.  They are “not one of us.”

I am done with organized religion. I am no longer telling people I am a Pentecostal.  The name has a stigma attached to it.  I am telling people I am a born-again Christian.  And you know what I hope?  They don’t even have to ask me, because I will be loving them so much as people, they will feel and see the love of Jesus….they won’t even have to ask me.   They’ll know.