TAKEN FOR GRANTED PART 2

Pretending-

Why do we have to pretend? Why do we think we are not fill in the blank- good enough, funny enough, smart enough, “cool” enough and the list goes on. This pretending goes so far that after you have pretended for so long, you forget your even pretending and start believing the garbage you are feeding yourself. There seems to be a certain “script” especially amongst church going people that all of your friends are perfect your family is perfect, your entire life is just perfection after perfection, it just makes me gag at all of the fake.

As I take look in scriptures on deception, the pretenders-

The Gibeonites in Joshua 9– out of fear pretended to live far away and with their long faces and moldy bread, lied and in the end were put under a life long curse.

In 1 Samuel 21:10-15 David was afraid of Achish the king of Gath and pretended to be insane.

In 2 Samuel 13:Amnon pretended to be sick to get what he wanted with disastrous consequences and was later murdered as a result.

In 1 Kings 14:- Abijah, Jeroboam’s son became very ill and he had his wife disguise herself and go to Shiloh to a prophet there taking ten loaves of bread some cakes and a jar of honey, pretending to be someone else, and in the end Abijah dies the instant she places her foot in the door after returning back home. The house of Jeroboam having done more evil than all of those who have lived before, arousing the Lord’s anger and disaster was brought upon his house.

In Luke 20:20-26 the spies pretended to be sincere hoping to catch Jesus in sin.

In Acts 27:27-32 a shipwrecked, the sailors were terrified and pretended they were lowering some anchors from the bow but were really lowering life boats. They eventually had to cut the ropes and let the life boat float away

And the list goes on, hmmm, I guess all of this pretending is not such a new thing after all.

Let us also be careful in comparisons, and may we all realize that none of us have “arrived” and we are all imperfect, although striving for His holiness, but we are also saved by His grace and filled with His love. There is no real need amongst His people who truly belong to Jesus to put on such a show for others. Yet in church after church I find that Christians are walking around, in a tragic sadness, a very UN happiness about them. Of course if asked, they all are too quick to paint on a fake smile and plead that everything is fine. All is perfect within their walls. Why do we feel the need to hide? Why do we constantly feel the need to pretend?

May we love one another as He has loved us, not judging, envying or being conceited. I think we need to take a lot of counsel from Jesus on the way to love others, with genuine love and concern, with pure and true motives, that further our love for one another, not tearing us apart in divisions.

Psalms 26 Mark 12:38-40 1 Corinthians 4:6-14 1 Corinthians 5

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