Vital signs- Wednesday April 21st, 2021

“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which indeed appear beautiful outwardly, but inside are full of dead men's bones and all uncleanness.”

(Matthew 23:27)

I read an article one time about Art Linkletter, who was a highly respected and famous TV personality for many decades. Art Linkletter said he was a professing Christian. But one day he had a great crisis in his life. He really needed help.

He was meeting with some young people who were on-fire Christians. There was no pretense with them, no holds barred. They were in a hotel lobby in San Francisco. It came time to pray, and those young people got down on their knees in that hotel lobby. Being a recognized public figure, Art Linkletter said, "I really felt funny about getting down on my knees in a public place like that. But I had such a need of God. I realized all this time I had not been a true Christian. I was a cardboard Christian. I threw all of that away, humbled myself before God, got on my knees, broke through to God, and met reality."

Reality is what this world hungers for. It’s sick and tired of make-believe, cardboard Christians. Reality, not hypocrisy, is the greatest need in the church today. The greatest argument for Christ—and the greatest argument against Christ—is the life of a Christian!

There always have been hypocrites. There always will be. The Lord Jesus Christ devoted the sixth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew to the problem of hypocrites. But how wonderful it is to know Jesus Christ. Serve Him and love Him with reality in your heart and life.