Matthew 23:27 - "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness."
It's so easy for reality (whether destructive forces or God's blessings) to slip past us and get whitewashed and covered over by the subtle deceptions of the world.
How do we keep this from happening? Of course, the most important way is to stay in God's Word daily which is a vertical, us-to-God practice.
But there's a horizontal, us-to-others practice that's also very important, namely, searching one another's souls. In a nutshell, to search one another's souls is to acknowledge that all of us have stuff (that's just below the surface of our public persona) that's been white-washed. It's stuff that's been covered because of the values of this fallen world: in sum, we value things and achievements more than people. So people whitewash and cover the questions and agonies of their soul for fear that they won't measure up, for fear they'll get fired, for fear that people will think they're weird, for fear that a spouse will leave or grown children won't come around, for fear that they'll wind up alone.
Tragically and ironically, the result of white-washing, covering up all our soul-ache and brokenness is the very thing that was feared: the result of the cover-up is that people wind up alone.
Oh, yes, they're surrounded by people, but they're people who are doing the exact same thing: covering up. They're the people in your neighborhood, your workplace, your grocery store, your school, your pew at church, your home, and your mirror.
But here's all we need to do to attack this white-washing that is destroying the soul of our world, our nation, our families, and our own selves. All we need to do is ask, "How are you doing?"
And mean it.
I'm serious.
All we need to do is ask, "How are you doing?" And mean it. To test my simple encouragement, do these two things today: 1) Count how many times today people ask you how you're doing. If anyone in your home asks you, consider yourself blessed. If anyone in your home asks you and means it, consider yourself double blessed. And if anyone outside your home (other than people whose job requires them to ask you because it's their fast food or grocery store policy and you can tell the employee doesn't really mean it), yes, so if anyone outside your home asks you how you're doing and means it, well, please hit reply all, tell us, and let us all get excited about the miracle. 2) Make a commitment today, just today, come on, try it, ask as many people as you can "how are you doing?" and really mean it when you ask. And you just watch, or rather listen, to how many people spew their hearts out to you like a volcano waiting to erupt or, a better analogy would be, like a human being made in the image of God and therefore made for relationships but who has lost hope that people actually care about people anymore so when you ask them how they're doing and really mean it, then their heart just spills out because they've literally been dying for someone to ask...who really means it.
That's what God does for us in Jesus.
Everything Jesus (God's Living Word) does at least implicitly asks, "How are you doing? I really mean it." That's why a large percent of the verses of the Psalms in the Bible are complaints. That's why there's a whole book of the Bible filled with complaints (Lamentations). That's why God hears our cries, answers our cries, and sends Jesus to die on the cross for our cries.
Because God in Christ really cares about how we're doing.
And it changes our whole outlook on life.
So that we can, in Christ's love, do the same for one another.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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