I greet you in Jesus’ precious name! It is Saturday morning, the 11th of January, 2025, and this is your friend, Angus Buchan, with a thought for today. 

We start in the Gospel of Matthew 15:11. Jesus says:

”Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

You and I have to clean our act up. Yes, we need to check our hearts today because it is more than outward appearances. You see, Jesus and His disciples were eating some food. They hadn’t washed their hands. They had probably been on the road. The pious Pharisees and scribes started pointing fingers. They said, “Look at these men! They don’t even wash their hands before they eat.” But the Pharisees and scribes went through all their rituals, their traditions, and had a special way of washing their hands, of washing their utensils, but inside they were rotten and Jesus saw it. 

We must not be hypocrites. As believers, we have got to be an example to the world. Jesus is more interested in the inside of a man or woman than the outside appearance of a man or a woman. Matthew 23:27:

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness.”

You see, it is hypocrisy that keeps a lot of people from turning to Jesus Christ. Mahatma Gandhi said he would have no problem following this Man, Jesus, but he could not reconcile himself to the followers of Jesus. We’ve really got to start to clean the inside first. I looked up the Oxford Dictionary of the word hypocrisy, and it is really quite scary. It said, “Behaviour in which a person pretends to have a higher standard than what they really have.”

One of the saddest things that happened to me as a new Christian, many years ago - I heard a true story about a pastor. He was a very fine looking man, always well-dressed, well-spoken and he preached a great message. He went away for a couple of weeks and left the key of his postbox with his secretary and his secretary would go and take the post out every week. She went this one week and took the post out and there she found a pornographic magazine that this pastor was subscribing to.  You see, he had forgotten that the magazine was coming to his postbox and that destroyed his ministry. After that, he left town. I want to say to you, let us be very careful that we walk the talk.

Jesus bless you and have a wonderful day,
Goodbye.