Pharisees: Part II

Then some Pharisees and teachers of the law came to Jesus from Jerusalem and asked, "Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? They don't wash their hands before they eat!"
Jesus replied, "And why do you break the command of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, 'Honor your father and mother' and 'Anyone who curses his father or mother must be put to death.' But you say that if a man says to his father or mother, 'Whatever help you might otherwise have received from me is a gift devoted to God,' he is not to 'honor his father' with it. Thus you nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you:

" 'These people honor me with their lips,

but their hearts are far from me.

They worship me in vain;

their teachings are but rules taught by men.' "

Jesus called the crowd to him and said, "Listen and understand. What goes into a man's mouth does not make him 'unclean,' but what comes out of his mouth, that is what makes him 'unclean.' "
Then the disciples came to him and asked, "Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this?"
He replied, "Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be pulled up by the roots. Leave them; they are blind guides. If a blind man leads a blind man, both will fall into a pit."
Peter said, "Explain the parable to us."
"Are you still so dull?" Jesus asked them. "Don't you see that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and then out of the body? But the things that come out of the mouth come from the heart, and these make a man 'unclean.' For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man 'unclean'; but eating with unwashed hands does not make him 'unclean.' " Matthew 15:1-20

Hypocrites. Jesus called them hypocrites. In current Christian circles, we have come to equate the term Pharisees with hypocrites. They're synonymous. I know I look at the Pharisees and think, "Boy, they really didn't get it! They're laws weren't based on knowing God. If that were the case, they would have accepted Jesus. They're morals were based on their own pride, their own selves, their own ideas. Their religion was man-made, not God-made. How dense can you get? Jesus was right there in front of them, and they missed Him. They focused on perfection, not on The Perfect--following a set of rules, not the Ruler--being Good, not knowing God. Hypocrites!"
And then I cringe, because I know, though pointing fingers:
I am one of "them."

A good question to always ask myself:

Where is my heart, and what is inside?