Like Paper on a Wall
Martha Meister Kiely
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"Woe, to you...for you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of ...uncleanness." Matthew 23:27
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Ordinary plaster walls can be transformed by wallpaper to resemble brick, bamboo, or a tropical isle. Such superficiality is acceptable on walls, but not in people. Jesus despised the skin-deep piety of religious leaders of his day and compared them to whitewashed tombs which were so deceptive.
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To be imitators of Christ does not mean to toss on a cloak of righteousness or even to ape his actions. It is only play acting to give without gratitude, to pray without faith, or to serve without love. Only one who truly imitates Christ submerges himself completely in God's will and emerges a new creation. God does his altering from the inside out, not from the outside in. He first makes clean and new the heart of man, know that a clean heart eventualy renovates the whole person. What God makes over, it is not the shallow process of slapping a new coverning on the old self, but the rebirth of a soul as a child of God.
To be imitators of Christ does not mean to toss on a cloak of righteousness or even to ape his actions. It is only play acting to give without gratitude, to pray without faith, or to serve without love. Only one who truly imitates Christ submerges himself completely in God's will and emerges a new creation. God does his altering from the inside out, not from the outside in. He first makes clean and new the heart of man, know that a clean heart eventualy renovates the whole person. What God makes over, it is not the shallow process of slapping a new coverning on the old self, but the rebirth of a soul as a child of God.
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Today make sure you are not just covering up.
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Pray: Create a clean heart within me, O God. Let me see myself as I appear in thy sight. Amen.
Pray: Create a clean heart within me, O God. Let me see myself as I appear in thy sight. Amen.
Devotions For Women At Home by Martha Meister Keily, page 123, Abington Press, ISBN 0-687-10679-6
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