Traits of a Pharisee # 3 - Toxic Faith

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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 is finished."  This passage of Scripture tells us the Pharisees are very busy; they certainly do not lack "works."  The problem is our goal is not to lead them to Jesus Christ but to indoctrinate them on our version of the truth because we need assurance we are OK. This is toxic. Anytime we impose our experience with God on someone else insisting it must be there experience, we are toxic.  The main ingredient in toxicity of faith is self righteousness.   The central core of Christian faith is we have no righteousness of our own that is acceptable to God-zero, none, denada! God is building a beautiful family and he is asking us to come along.  He allows us to be in on the joys and sorrows of building this kingdom, this family. He lets us get in on the fun, and it is the grace of God working in us that produces good fruit.  A recovering Pharisee needs to see participation in the body of Christ is a beautiful privilege rather than a heavy burden. We need not convince or convert anyone to our brand - we are free to simply love others.

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