Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites!  You give a tenth of your spices–mint, dill and cummin.  But you have neglected the more important matters of the law–justice, mercy and faithfulness.  You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.  You blind guides!  You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.       Mat. 23:23-24

These guys are very legalistic.  They always make sure they give their tenth of spices, and in full view of everyone.  They want to make sure everyone sees them doing it, and probably how much they are giving for that matter.  But yet, they ignore the matters that are of great importance to God, justice, mercy and faithfulness.  They have no problem doing the little stuff and what is easy for them, but when it comes to the harder stuff, they ignore it.  They have a huge arrogant pride about themselves.  What is most important to them is getting praised by men, not praising God.  They will quickly condemn anyone who does not tithe, for example, but when it comes to a matter of justice or mercy, which is the office that they are holding, they pick and chose when and what they do.  They don’t take the scriptures and make decision based on what God would want done, but what benefits them the most. 

Unfortunately, I have done the exact same thing at times in my christian walk.  I have judged other Christians because they did something that in my eyes was wrong, or I just didn’t like the way that they did it.  There have been times that because I am a leader in my church that I thought I knew better just because of my title in church.  When in reality, there are many more more qualified people, in my church, for the job than me.    I have learned through many hardships that I can learn from these people, how to be a more godly christian, more godly man, more godly husband and leader. 

One of the things that my wife has pointed out to me many times is that I do complain a lot.  I always told her, that my family does a lot of complaining, so I have just learned their bad habit, so I can’t help it.  It is just who I am.  She then points out to me that it is just a bad habit, and an unglorifying one at that.  I do complain, especially when I don’t like something or agree with the decision.  Instead I need to learn to pray about the situation.  Pray about should I say something or not.  Maybe my idea is unscriptural, I may be out in left field.  I need to go to the word and see what it says about the situation.  If I am right, I need to pray about how I go about approaching the person(s) about what they are doing wrong.  Should I say nothing because God will deal with them, or is God using me to teach them.  I need to be open to the Holy Spirit and his direction for my life at all times in all things.

Dear God, may I not complain about anything, but constantly be in prayer about your direction for my life at that time and the future to come.  I desire to be a leader of my family and at church, but not just a leader, a godly leader.  I do not want to be anything like the Pharisee’s who looked liked christians on the outside, but were not on the inside.  Were willing to tell people what to do or not to do so long as it benefited them.