the flowers

I showed a Nooma video last night to our teens at youth. It was the Sunday video and it's really interesting how it tied in with what we are talking about in youth as well as what we discussed yesterday in the blog. In the video Rob Bell is sitting in a diner and eating a muffin of some sort and sipping on his coffee. That has very little to do with the story but it's a neat setting none the less.
He talks about men taking flowers home to their wives. This is where I change the story up quite a bit but get the same results. The first husband takes a dozen roses home and says that he picked up a dozen beautiful roses for her because he thought that was what she expected. The second husband picked up 2 dozen mixed roses of extremely high quality and took them home to his wife and handed them to her and said here are your roses, they were on sale so I picked them up for you. THe third gave his wife a huge bouquet of flowers of all sorts, an extremely expensive arrangement and told her how expensive they were and how he thought she was worth it. The final man took his wife 3 roses, handed them to her on no occasion at all and told her that he loved her, and thanked God for her every day.
That's a perfect picture of the different people who go to church. You have your hyppocrites who are just dragging down the others around them because they are doing what is "expected of them." Then you have those who go to church and do a little more than what is expected as long as it is convenient. Thirdly, you have those who go and do above and beyond, but they announce it and hope to be rewarded for it and praised for it.
Then, you have God's people. Those who have given God their hearts, their souls and do whatever is needed to exemplify God's love. They do it willingly, and most importantly they do it for no earthly reward whatsoever.
Jesus saw this type of hypocrisy and actually called the leaders of the religious groups of His day hypocrites!
Matthew 23:13 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you are hypocrites! You shut the kingdom of heaven in men's faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those trying to enter. Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as you are."
Jesus didn't just call them hypocrites because they taught one thing and lived another. He didn't just call them hypocrites, he called them sons of hell. That's strong words from the Son of God.
So do what GOd calls you to do, do it lovingly and in a way that it points to the cross and CHrist not to man.
Thanks for reading and have a great day!