Straining Gnats and Swallowing Camels

  Matthew 23:23 EPV Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You pay your tithes, so what anyone can do that but you’ve neglected the more important things of the law--justice, mercy, love and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter more so than the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. Nit pic’ers! 

 Scripture repeatedly emphasizes the importance of loving others, especially fellow believers, above all other duties. Love is the camel that the gnat-focused Pharisees ignored. Love is the camel that all religious people ignore, including pharisaic "Christians," who are continually straining out gnats.

  I don’t know bout you but I conclude that Jesus must not like people who are so zealous. In fact I would go so far as to say He had no use for the religious....the Pharisees, the hypocrites! Don’t agree?  Read your Bible.  *smile*  I read all through it where He was always coming against the religious.  Remember the temple? 

 Don’t do this! Don’t touch that!  Don’t let your kids play hide and seek with pretty colored eggs!  Don’t put up a pretty decorated tree and put gifts under it so your kids can rip them open with laughter and glee! Don’t let your kids have fun! It’s all satanic!  Horse manure! Yep I said it....horse manure!

  Don’t celebrate Christ’s resurrection cause who really knows what day He was actually resurrected! Don’t celebrate Christ’s birth cause who knows what day He was really born on! Who cares!  He was born, He died and He rose from the dead and He forever lives in me and that’s all I need to know!  Nic pic’ers!  You choose to keep all the Jewish festivals and so called Holy days but you neglect the real reason Jesus came. The Pharisees were sure to bring their sacrifices to the temple, but they had little compassion for hurting people, just like those whom Hosea condemned in his day and just like those of today!  He came to set man free from the law...."if righteousness comes through the law than Christ died in vain".  Galatians 2:21 And His only ‘law’ is to love God with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself and in doing this....you what?  Fulfill the whole law!  Check it out....Matthew 22:37-40    Majoring on minors and minoring on majors is a fault that is universal among pharisaic and religious people....you strain gnats but swallow camels! 

 Doctrine, even right and good doctrine, is meaningless apart from love. Theologians and Bible scholars beware! You are, according to scripture, absolutely nothing without love. Clouds without water, a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Some of the nastiest people I've ever met are those whose Christianity consists solely of doctrines they defend, who are ready to pounce on anyone who differs in even some minor matter. They can prove their points using Bible verses, but orphans and widows will starve waiting for a crumb from their tables.

  Being a Christian is not defined by what you know or say you believe, it is defined by what you are and what you do. If you’re gonna talk the talk than baby you betta’ be walkin’ the walk!  Doctrine that cannot be translated into action is utterly useless. Reading your Bible every day or going to a church building every time the door is open amounts to nothing if you don't do what is most important to God...love others.

 This being so, preaching the gospel itself can become a strained gnat if love is absent. The most effective evangelists are lovers.

 He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God? (Micah. 6:8).

 I love verses that simplify spirituality, don't you?  Being a Christian is so easy...man makes it hard with all his man made laws and religiosity!  Here it is in a nut shell...(thus says the Lord not Elizabeth). *smile* “ Jesus said unto him, “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment.  And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.”   When you do these, you do well! 

 How important is loving others? Our love for each other identifies us to the world as being Christ's disciples: By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another. (John 13:35)  Not condemning others for what they believe or how they choose to worship but loving them in spite of their differences. 

 Along those same lines, our love for one another is what will convince the world, above anything else, of the truth of the gospel, which is why Jesus prayed...that they may all be one...that the world may believe that Thou didst send Me....that they may be perfected in unity, that the world may know that Thou didst send Me... (John 17:21, 23).

 So, let’s quit straining gnats and swallowing camels!  Let’s quit pointing out the splinter in our neighbor’s eye when we can’t see for the 2X4 that’s sticking outta’ our own eye!

  Micah 6:6 With what shall I come before the LORD and bow down before the exalted God? Shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?  Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I offer my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good. And what does the LORD require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.  Amen!

  In His love,
Elizabeth