27 “How terrible for you, teachers of the Law and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look fine on the outside but are full of bones and decaying corpses on the inside. 28In the same way, on the outside you appear good to everybody, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and sins.
Hypocrisy - a pretty common thing among people who does not have Christ or have received salvation. Jesus was rebuking the pharisees - did not believe in Christ but were legalistic, obeyed the law and perhaps, good people. It is not the good we do on the outside that counts. It's what is done both in secret and in the open that matters. God sees all things and when we are one-sided in our 'godliness', then what difference does it make? A double-sided holiness (inside and outside perspective) is what matters. When the inside is holy, it shows on the outside. When the outside is holy, it doesn't always mean we are holy on the inside. It's a one-way street: holy inside + outside = holy outside. But 'holy' outside + inside = hypocrisy.
// May I always check myself. That what I do in the outside perspective is just an overflow of what is going on inside. I desire that I will always be 'tilled' inside, that my outside work will be holy - an outflow of my inside. I will constantly check myself. I will make sure I work on my inside by losing the temptation of being only good outside and not inside.
// Lord, Only THROUGH YOU I can be holy on the inside. I pray that my outward actions is just an outflow of how much you've already changed me. Help me to choose YOU daily - both in private and public. In Jesus' name, amen.
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