This people honors Me with their lips, but their hearts are far from Me (Matthew 15:8)
A contractor in California came up with an innovative idea for selling his homes. He thought a good way to make a house look good was to have the family present when he showed the house to potential buyers. So he hired actors to play happy families in the model houses his company built. Buyers can even ask the actors about the condition of the house. Each member of the fake family performs their respective roles. Some cook, watch television, and play while potential home buyers look around.
Forgery like this is not wrong, but think about the pretense of the religious leaders at the time of Jesus (Matthew 15:1-9). They pretend to love God, piously making lists of rules that they and others must obey. However, this was only a way for them to appear pious. They even consider the rules they make as important as the Law that God directly said (verse 5,6). Jesus called them "hypocrites" (verse 7). In their lips they seem to honor God, but their hearts say otherwise -- they are far from Him (verse 8).
There are many people today who pretend like this. Outwardly we are like good Christians because we diligently go to church, obey some rules according to the law, and speak the truth. We say we love Jesus, but maybe our hearts are far from Him. Allah wants us not to pretend --AMC
God sees our ways and knows our hearts,
What can we hide from Him? The outward truth does not save,
He knows the depths of our hearts. --Sper
PRETENSE AGAINST TRUE FAITH
* Take from Renungan Harian