The White Stone Zone

23  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. 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.   24  You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. I once heard a preacher ask, "What is easier men, throwing a tithe into the basket or loving your wives on a consistent basis?"  If most men were honest, they would say the former. In John 13,  Jesus said that the mark of discipleship is that we love one another. I left the institutional church a while ago; I outgrew it to be honest. I am still in fellowship with other believers and work with a group of teaching elders that take no salary. We meet at a restaurant/bar on Sunday mornings, so there is no need for money for the gathering.  Do you realize it cost nothing for believers to gather? The emphasis we have is trusting the f

15  “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and when you have succeeded, you make them twice as much a child of hell as you are. (Matthew 23)     There was a time in my walk with God that I went to tell others God loved them in order to get God to love me.  In other words, I would try to tell people about the love of Jesus Christ and my motivation was to get God to love me.  Bass Ackwards, I know.  I am sure the fact that I really did not believe God loved them either came through somehow and my labor was in vain.  Trait number 3 of a Pharisee is toxic faith in the sense you are trying to pass along your version of the truth rather than simply loving others like Christ. I was questioning within myself once why I did not "witness more," I heard the Holy Spirit say, "You have nothing to tell them; I don't want them to have what you have. You are miserable. You really don't believe it i

  True confession time: Jesus blasts the Pharisees in Matthew 23. There, he lays out the characteristics of a Pharisee. Let's look at three of them. Trait 1 (verses 1-4)- We do not practice what we preach. If we are honest, we admit that it is so much easier to walk the walk than to talk the talk. I have done this my entire life with a "grace to me, law to you mentality. More recently I've done this to my children countless times; I've demanded things from them that I am incapable of doing. I chastised my daughters for being interested in boys stating, "God 's love should be enough for you. You should be willing to wait to date and don't look to others to meet your needs for love acceptance and forgiveness--look only to God. Meanwhile, for most of my life I've looked to everything on the planet besides God to meet my needs, and as a 55 year old man, I still fall into the trap of looking to other things to meet my needs.       Trait 2 of a Pharisee -

            I was born a Pharisee; even though my family was not religious, I was born a Pharisee. The reason is because every human being is born a Pharisee. Atheists are Pharisees; a fact which will be proven within the pages of this blog. My parents and their parents were Pharisees. I come from a long tradition of Pharisees and have been surrounded by them my whole life. I have carried the banner quite faithfully. Even when I learned the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, I became a grace Pharisee. I think you get the picture. It all began on May 18, 1962 in Hoboken, NJ. This day still holds the title for the record high heat for that day in history. It was a wicked 98* which was far above the norm for a day in May for NJ. My mom reports is was 103* in the hospital. Nevertheless, they wrapped me in a little Pharisee robe and handed me to my Pharisee mom. I was born into the world of sin and death with two ways to cope on my own. One way to cope was to become a Pharisee, and the ot