"They Claim to Know God"

READ: Titus 1:1-16

REFLECT
“Actions speak louder than words.” “I’d rather see a sermon than hear one any day.” “What you’re doing shouts so loudly that I can’t hear what you’re saying.” “People don’t care what we know until we show that we care.” These statements are each a challenge to all who call themselves Christians and all are based on one simple truth - when our words and our actions are in contradiction, people believe our actions not our words. And according to the Bible, so they should!

Jesus’ strongest rebukes and condemnations were not for the tax collectors, prostitutes or the harassed and helpless crowds, but for those who claimed “to know God but by their actions they” denied him. I think immediately of Matthew 23 and the “Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites” statements! For the first 10 years of my spiritual life, I read that chapter arrogantly and applied it to all the religious people I’d met who claimed to be Christians, but whose lives didn’t measure up to what it means to be a disciple of Jesus. Then it hit me! All this talk about hypocrisy is meant to humble me and help me to look deeply into my own life in order to make sure that what I claim to be fits with how I am living. Hmmm!

PRAY
Father, it is easy for me to see the hypocrisy in others' lives. I seem to have no problem seeing the inconsistencies between others' words and their actions. I do, however, seem to have a problem seeing the same thing in my own life. I pray, Father, that you will open my eyes so that I might see myself as you see me and that I will have the humility to see any and all hypocrisy in my own life. May I never be among those who claim to know God but by my actions deny you.

OBEY
Do you claim to know God? Do your actions support your claim? Stated another way: Could someone tell that you’re a Christian by how you live without you saying a word?