This is my first installment of little devotions I will share with you....Join me in this time and in prayer as Home School Mama's around the globe.
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"Woe to you teachers of the Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness." Matthew 23:27,28
As I read my devotion today from the little book Moments for Home School Moms by Beth Sharpton, I was reminded of my home. When my daughter cleans up her room, so I think.. open up the closet doors and everything that was on her floor flys out of the closet at you. Well, friends, I am no better to even preach. I may have had a rough week or get a bit lazy putting things back. Things start piling up in literal piles around the house like little mines scattered. You must be careful where you walk or you just might blow up. Company is coming!!! and I gotta get rid of the mess fast!! So, I take a large plastic tub and fill it with all the messes, toss it in the garage and shut the door behind me... ahh!!! Your friends come over and ooh and ahh about how clean and lovely and so homey your place is... only if they knew. I myself start feeling like these Pharisees. Everything looks wonderful as long as you don't open that door. It's not really clean...is it??? It's like a whitewashed tomb.
Jesus called the Pharisees hypocrites because they pretended to be something they weren't...oh yes! they followed rules, went to all the religious services and outwardly did all the right things. Their lives reminded Jesus of fancy tombs, all clean and whitewashed, but rotten inside. The inside of even a nice white tomb is still full of dead people's bones.
My Friends paint me with whitewash... but I knew what was really inside me and behind that garage door. What they couldn't see, Jesus could. I knew I may have been a bit slothful and didn't want to really put away my junk... it was an attitude of laziness on my part.. and oh !!! My friends can't see me with this messy house, now can they... what will they think of me?
I truly must ask the Lord for his guidance in making better decisions for my family, my life and my teaching. Is this what I want to teach my children? My daughter has already done it.
The pharisees had an air of holiness, but it was just camouflage. God knew their hearts. I certainly don't want to make that mistake with my attitudes. I don't want any camouflage in my life. I do want to be holy yet, cannot do it on my own. Only the Spirit of our Holy God lives within me can.
Dear Lord,
sometimes people think because we home school our children we are extra religious. We have felt your call to teach our children at home. It is a difficult calling at times, yet no more devout or difficult than public school teachers or homemakers. Lord cleanse me inside and out, keep me from self pride, as well as dejection and whatever gleam of purity might emanate from my life, I will be the first to give you all the Glory for it. Amen
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