Most Righteous Lord, I praise You for Your consistent and faithful witness to me and Your call for me to do the same. I must be sensitive to the fact that You and others are not evaluating me just on what I say, but what I do. I cannot allow myself to be blown about by every wind and doctrine that crosses my path. I must resist supporting something one day and abandoning it for something else the next day. I cannot preach the Gospel and walk differently from what I say. I can’t change Your words to my liking … I must be faithful to what You say and what You ask of me. I cannot be two-faced … telling others what they should do and then doing something different. I can’t promise You to be faithful in one thing and, when testing and trials confront me, do as I see fit. To be a person of the Word, I must believe it, stand by it and do what it instructs. I must remain firm in my belief that Your Word is inspired and true.
I understand that walking in the ways prescribed in Your Word will not be easy. Your word tugs at my heart while my flesh follows the pulling of its fallen nature. In committing my life to You, I’ve promised to abandon the ways of my flesh and seek to become more like You. I cannot accept what You say in Your Word, begin to walk in it and then abandon it when the going gets tough. Others will not be drawn to You when they see me waffle in my faith. By building my life on You and Your teachings, I’ve chosen to build on a sound foundation. In choosing to follow in the ways of the world or doing things my way because they seem “cool”, I am building my life on sand that will shift under me and cause it to fall apart. Fixing my eyes on You, accepting Your words as truth and allowing the Holy Spirit to guide me in becoming a person of faith, will keep me from being indecisive in what I should do.
Hypocrisy stems from a lack of trust. Doubt is the seed the Devil plants in my thinking so that the things on which I stand shake and tremble. Faith is my antidote that counteracts doubt. The peace and comfort You give blocks the entrance of worry and fear. You have stated that You have not given me a spirit of fear but a spirit of love, power and sound thinking to resist it. The renewing of my mind … with its memories, experiences and learnings … means that “old thinking” must be replaced with “new thinking”. Being torn between what I used to believe and what Your Word tells me is the “real truth” causes me to hesitate and become indecisive. I can make the transition smoother if I remember that accepting You calls me to repentance which is a turning away from everything that is not of You. By putting my life in Your hands, I’m eliminating hypocrisy from it. And it’s in Jesus’ name I pray. AMEN!!
Matthew 23:28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous, but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy …