FBC Daily Devotional – May 11, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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00:06

A good Tuesday to you. How's your week going thus far? Enjoying the month, the merry month of May and enjoying the mowing of the lawn and the flowers coming out and all those wonderful things that go along with this time of year.

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Every season has its pluses and negatives, doesn't it? And it doesn't matter what season of the year.

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We can always find something to complain about and I hope I hope you're relishing in the blessings of this spring season and not getting bogged down in the pollen and the lawn mowing jobs and all those kinds of other things that go along with it.

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Well today in our reading, I want to focus on just a couple of verses that Jesus really spoke as a warning.

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He said in chapter 12 of Mark verses 38 and following. He said beware of the scribes and then he describes, he describes the scribes and what it is he wants you to beware of.

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And what he's doing here is he's not he's not attacking our you know, our natural reasonable need and desire for recognition or appreciation for a job well done.

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There is a natural place for that. That's not a bad thing.

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It can easily get out of hand. It can easily easily get out of line where we feel particularly slighted if we're not recognized for something that we did.

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But to but to to do a job and to do it well and to appreciate being appreciated for that job well done.

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It's not a it's not a bad thing and we who are parents we undoubtedly were generous with expressing our appreciation for a job well done and congratulations and and expressing our pride, our reasonable healthy pride in our children for their success or whatever they did that was a good job.

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Now Jesus isn't criticizing that here in this particular passage when he says beware of the scribes.

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What he's getting at in a in dealing with the scribes is their attitude of always having to be the center of attention.

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Where as he says they desire to go around in long robes so everybody can easily recognize

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Oh, there goes a scribe. There's one of the scribes, you know, oh wow make way here come the scribes you know that kind of a thing.

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They go around in long robes and they love greetings in the marketplace. They love to be recognized in the marketplace as they make their way through the crowd.

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Everybody's oh hello there scribe so -and -so da da da da da da and they just love to be recognized to be the center of attention and they love the best seats in the synagogue, you know front and center where everybody can see them everybody can notice them and they love the best places at feasts.

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So there's a there's a table for the honored guests. That's where they want to be. They want those seats and they devour widows houses as they take advantage of them through their through their manipulation of of the widows by virtue of their superior piety and godliness and who for a pretense make long prayers.

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Now, what what's the the thread that runs through all of those characteristics is that the scribes love to be the center of attention and they will they will do whatever they can in every setting to have eyes turned to them to cause attention to be given to them and they'll even use their religion to to grab that attention for a pretense they make long prayers because What they really love what they really love is for somebody to say wow

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Listen to that person pray. Oh What a godly man what a godly woman that person is.

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Whoa Did you hear did you hear how eloquent that prayer was?

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Oh my goodness How pious how godly they must be and so on well what

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Jesus warned against Is inscripturated for us for good reason because you know the church a couple thousand years later is not immune from there being people who

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Love to be like the scribes who really want to be the center of attention I'm so grateful for the church.

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I serve in that it doesn't it doesn't seem to be people who are just Gravitating for that kind, you know gravitating to that kind of a position where they they want to be recognized

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And I'm thankful for that. It hasn't always been the case. I can remember the first church I pastored

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There was a there was an older man in the church. And and I remember myself. I was a young I was a kid

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You know, what did I what did I know? Didn't didn't have a whole lot of Discernment at that particular time.

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I hadn't been around much. How could I but anyway, this guy was probably about 80 years old and I Thought Everybody in the church thought he was such a godly man when you when he spoke everybody listened, you know kind of a thing and Everybody's attention turned to good old.

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Mr. So -and -so And he could pray Flowery prayers and he

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I remember when I went to candidate at that church. He spoke up and he said all young man

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You have a wisdom beyond your years I thought wow, you know,

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I must be a pretty wise guy Yeah, I was pretty wise guy. Not too wise to listen to that I shouldn't have listened to that kind of thing.

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Let it go to my head. It was less than a year later that I found out this guy wasn't quite as pious as everybody thought he was and I also found out that not everybody had such a high opinion of Him that some thought that there was a bit of spiritual pride going on in the man's life

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And yeah, frankly there was I'm sure there was he did love he did love to be the center of attention

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Well that was long ago far away, but it sticks in my mind because of what

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Jesus warns against here and it it's a wonderful thing when there is a church body of Believers that take very much to heart the

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Lord's warning against the kind of pride that Says I've got to be the center of attention.

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Hey everybody. Look at me. Look at how godly I am. Oh May we long for hearts of humility and may we disdain

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Selfish pride in our own hearts God in heaven I pray deliver us from this kind of scribal folly and the fallacy of believing that we need to be

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We need to be the center of attention and we need to be so highly thought of and we need to be considered

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Pious giants. Oh Lord. Give us hearts of humility. We pray and we ask this in Jesus name.

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Amen All right, well I I hope you have a good rest of your Tuesday and That the week is going well for you and getting off to a good start.