Checklists, rules, laws - they are meant to be our servants, not our masters.  As servants, they can greatly aid us in our walk with Jesus.  As masters, they lead us astray, for they can never save or sanctify us.

Matthew 23:25-26, Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.

The Pharisees ritualistically cleaned their cup and plates, and then thought to themselves, "Look everyone at how holy I am!"  Now, cleaning cups and plates before using them is a good idea.  But washing one's dishes never made a person holy.  Jesus told them to focus on the "inside," and by that he did not mean the inside of the cup or plate, but the inside of their soul.  That is always what we need to clean.  And sadly, when we take great pride in our rituals, we only dirty our soul even more.  Rituals can speak powerfully to you and me.  But if we think we are hot stuff because we have participated in them, they are of no value to us.  Indeed, they aid in our undoing.

Quiet Reflections: What rituals mean a lot to you?  God is a god or rituals.  He instituted a number of them to help his people remember his great works.  Praise God for the rituals that speak to you.  But be careful: None of our rituals, in-and-of-themselves, save or sanctify us.  They merely point us to the One who does.  

Thoughts or comments?

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