Praise of Lip And Life

On this Lord’s Day Sunday, we come to our Sovereign, One God, who is all truth. We bless and praise His Name, because He is Holy and His Name is also Hallowed. Our deep desire, in these precious and privileged moments of favour and grace, is not just to have our lips speak glowing, marvellous facts about our Father in heaven. O no! We sincerely, honestly and truthfully want our lives to show all that we speak about our heavenly Father.

Will you join us in making this prayer-offering to God? We are taking it from David, asking God the Holy Spirit, to please make it true in us. We seek His Divine help, in each of us, to make this offering, not just a lip-prayer, but a life-prayer.

I will call upon the LORD, who is worthy to be praised; so shall I be saved from my enemies.  Psalm 18: 3

One sure enemy that forever tries to get at all believers, especially in our service to God, is the abhorred enemy called pretence or hypocrisy. Even the word itself, hypocrisy, is unpleasant to most of us. Who likes to be thought of or spoken of as a hypocrite? Worst of all, if you are hailed as a hypocrite, one of the common rebuttals is this. “Who are you to judge me and call me by the name of hypocrite?” And in mean and acid temper, you fling these words back at your accuser, “You are a bigger hypocrite than I am.”

Let’s get a simple, active, commonly understood definition of the word hypocrisy.  Hypocrisy is when persons pretend to be what they are not, or say they believe something, which they really do not believe. In other words, I profess to be a teetotaller, yet on occasions I can be seen enjoying a glass of sherry or wine. It may be that I claim to believe in a particular detergent and advertise it openly and boldly, yet I use a different detergent for washing my clothes.

Hypocrisy is vehemently denounced by God and His genuine servants. They neither practise it, tolerate it, nor condone it. With God and His servants, hypocrisy is never allowed to roam free. Here is the classic quote from Isaiah, God’s mouthpiece, concerning God’s own called and chosen, beloved people, when they were being very hypocritical in their honour, love and respect to Him. This is how the prophet describes them. This is what is said. Inasmuch as these people draw near with their mouths and honor Me with their lips, but have removed their hearts far from Me, and their fear toward Me is taught by the commandment of men. Isaiah 29: 13b.

As we have come together before God, in this offering, on this first day of a promising week, we know and believe. We know that we have already asked God the Holy Spirit, to let us not have our lips praising, but our lives showing something opposite.  By faith, we believe that the ever-working Holy Spirit, has answered us, so that our praise to Father God is not lip service. We offer our hearts in service to God, so that we will know and show holy, living fear towards Him.

We keep looking to You, Holy Spirit, to save us from all hypocrisy. Amen!