Hypocrisy: I'm guilty

You know who is encouraging to look at in the Bible? Peter. And David. They both messed up so much, most people would call them hypocrites. Yet God loved them enough to see past their hypocrisy into their hearts and allowed them to be influential in spreading the Word. It really comforts me to know that God still loves me and can still use me if my heart is tender toward Him, even if to others, or even to myself, I appear as a hypocrite. I don't say all of that to condone hypocrisy. I say it to encourage those of you who may be like me-afraid to speak the truth because you know that of yourself, you are unworthy to even bear the Mark of Christ. I hold back so often because I know what I'm guilty of, I hear that voice in my head saying "You've done the same thing, or something similar", and in a sense, I think that can be a good thing, helping me to check myself before I wreck myself (lol). But it can also be really detrimental, because it causes me to sit back and allow a standard that should be held high to waiver or be lowered. I think that's where understanding true love comes into play. True love doesn't allow certain things to go deliberately unnoticed. Sometimes it's appropriate not to say something or not to establish a certain opinion. But other times, it's appropriate and in fact, absolutely necessary to growth as an individual. Mercy needs to be accompanied by discipline. Not discipline in the form of punishment with no forgiveness. Discipline as God defines it - For those who the Lord loves, He disciplines, as a father disciplines the child in whom he delights! Our Father disciplines us because He delights in us! I love that. I think I love it because as a child I was always fearful of getting into trouble with my father. He was very strict. I was terrified of him because in my mind, his discipline or strictness didn't seem loving to me. Had he been around for a few more years I know he would have been better able to help me see that his discipline shouldn't cause me to be that scared of him, that he did it because he loved me. In the same way, in this passage it says that a father who delights in their child disciplines them. So even when God seems "mean" or "scary", He's not. He does what He does because He loves and delights in me.

This is kind of a random post, and I wasn't able to really tie it all up, but hey, it's what I was thinking about.