I’ve had a full inbox this week, as Sunday’s gathering seems to have prompted a lot of very healthy introspection for many of us. Hypocrisy is one of those issues that causes a visceral reaction. We hate to see it, and really hate when we see it in ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago I had the chance to be with a group of pastors and educators at an event where Dallas Willard spoke (if Protestant Christians had patron saints, I think Dallas would be mine). He was listing from Scripture some characteristics of what people look like as they are growing and becoming more like Christ. One of the wonderfully freeing things he said was that they don’t seem especially religious – that following Jesus, and becoming like him, is truly the stuff of everyday life in the world. “Religious” activities just happen naturally in the course of life spent with Jesus. Most of us probably already know this to some extent, but isn’t that good news? As I think of those Christians whose lives I find most compelling and to whom I’m most drawn, inevitably they don’t come off as religious. Rather, they seem very connected to God, but wear that connection in a very light, easy sort of way.

It’s ironic that the Pharisees looked so religious, and Jesus was always accused by them of not being religious enough. And it’s not that Jesus wasn’t engaged in the same spiritual activities, “institutional” religious structures of his day, and spiritual disciplines that the Pharisees were – all of these were part of his normal, everyday life. But for Jesus they were not necessarily religious. They were a natural part of living in authentic relationship with his Father and with those around him.

And as God grows us and shapes us to look more like his Son, we’ll find that these things become more natural, and less religious feeling, for us as well. Lord make it so . . .

Lord bless you my friends, and we’ll see you this weekend –

Tim
Mt 6:33