Not In Part, But The Whole

Jesus proves in His words, that these Godly people are being controlled by their sinful nature and not by the Holy Spirit. I ask you, if these Pharisees and teachers of the law were living in accordance with the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t their minds and hearts be tuned towards Jesus and not their lawful desires?

Be ever conscious of the fact that those who are telling Jesus about His students doing the wrong thing, are themselves teachers and leaders just as Rabbi Jesus. As teachers, they too have their disciples and teach what Rabbi Jesus is most obviously not teaching; that is, living in accordance to the tradition of the elders. Why don’t your disciples live according to the tradition of the elders instead of eating their food with 'unclean’ hands? Mark 7: 5b.

These worshippers of God have come to Jesus with one aspect of their tradition, and Jesus, as it were, has not just lifted one aspect of the tradition of the elders, under which He came up. These are the very teachings of His ancestors, which were taught to Him about ceremonial hand washing, but He brings to light its fullness and intention. He speaks to them of the whole, their worship to God. In other words, is not Jesus saying that they spend all their energies and efforts on making sure the law and traditions are kept, which is what they desire, but they fail to realize that they are not following the whole command of God?

For these eyes of lawfulness, the show of their works is what matters. They are proud of the fact that their worship is with ‘show’, for they pray the perfect prayers, offer the perfect praise and boast about their witnessing, compared with other believers and worshippers of the same God. But Jesus, who knows them firsthand, has revealed a true picture of who they are. They are religiously worshipping people whose worship is empty, vain and totally not accepted by Jehovah. Can’t you hear Jesus saying to them and all of us who insist on having pharisaical minds, works and ways that our worship to God is in vain? Can you hear Him saying that no matter how smug we feel about obeying the Sabbath Law, not eating or drinking certain foods and drinks, staying separated from those who are not of our denomination, keeping away from certain places and such like, those things do not hold importance with God, if our hearts are far from Him?

Oh! What a stinging and stunning blow, to tell us, who see ourselves as living in obedience, because of those lawful things we do, that our worship is vain. What a letdown and crying shame, to tell me that all the efforts I make, all the time, money, energy and more that I put into worshipping, is not appreciated by God. Can this be true? Can these words be factual? Yet Jesus comes and speaks with such authority, it leaves one wondering.

You people worship me with your lips, but your hearts are far from me. You worship me in vain; your teachings are but rules taught by men.

God is not judging me on the efforts I make to keep the traditions and commandments, hammering away on some and failing to keep the others to the same degree of human effort. What is this really all about then?

We conclude with some eye-openers and soul-lifters.