No cover up

DEVOTION

PROVERBS

NO COVER UP

Prov 26:23

23 Like a coating of glaze over earthenware are fervent lips with an evil heart.

NIV

The original text and some other translations make it more like a vessel of pottery covered over with silver dross. That is it might look like a silver vessel but inside it is still just a piece of common pottery. This is same old story of putting on a façade to look better that we are. Certainly we could apply this to someone else who pretends to be our friend but only has their own interests at heart. We could also apply this to the silver tongued preachers who speak those smooth words to woe followers only for the purpose of their offerings so they can live the good life. Jesus spoke this type of truth about the Pharisees when he called them whitewashed tombs.

Matt 23:25-28

25 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean. 27 "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of dead men's bones and everything unclean. 28 In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness.

NIV

We should be careful not to appear more on the outside then we are on the inside. But that seems to be the rule of thumb for many believers today. We go to church and say, “I am fine, you are fine, we all are fine”. We smile, shake hands or even hug and all the while we have that ugly sin inside and we keep it covered up with our pretending to be just fine. But then Jesus died for our sin, so we are just fine. But where is the real us inside that silver plated vessel? The worse case scenario would be when we look in the mirror and see the façade we have put over ourselves. When we look into our own heart do we see a silver plated “Good Christian” or do we see the real us, living a life that has problems with certain areas of our  life and need the die to that self, and allow the Spirit to take over? In theory that all sounds good, but in reality we are still ourselves and we wrestle with sin, as we do live in a corruptible body, with a mind and heart that seeks after its own desires. Yes, we die to self on a daily basis, but the problem is we keep raising back up from the dead. Yet let us not cover up the real us. In a way it is a lot like some of these very beautiful people, but when they remove all that makeup, wow, the real them is not so good looking. Let us not cover up who we are. Let us not pretend we are fine, when we are not fine. Let us be real. Let us not just clean up the outside. Yet, on the other hand, being saved, being born again, knowing Jesus as our Lord and Savior has indeed cleaned the inside. He has made us holy. He made us righteous and blameless in the eyes of God. Jesus has cleansed the inside and so it would be right to be simply a very clean pot made of clay, made exactly just as the potter made us. Still there is no need for silver plating.