Religious people are offended by the truth 2 of 2 (The heart of a man Matthew 15:10-20)

Religious people are offended by the truth 2 of 2 (The heart of a man Matthew 15:10-20)
I once knew a very religious woman. She went to church, bought the best clothes to show off there, paid her tithes (made correct change in the offering plate), read her Bible daily (for the most part), and from the outside she looked like she had it together. But I knew she was a mess. She struggled with the fact that God had allowed her to be disabled, divorced then widowed, and alone. She held onto offenses and did not forgive many until she was close to death a few short years ago.
I loved her but she once told me she did not know what real love was. If you don’t know it then how do you give it? If you don’t know love, then how do you claim Jesus Christ as your savior.
She was offended by those that challenged her thought process when it came to the gospel. In a heated discussion with a family member over scripture she said once, “I don’t care what the Bible says I know what I am talking about!” I imagine that she felt just like the Pharisees in Matthew 15:12.
12 Then the disciples came to him and asked, “Do you realize you offended the Pharisees by what you just said?”
Jesus had been teaching about inner purity. The teachers of the law could not let go of the traditions of the elders. They were confident that cleaning the outside had to be a part of a spiritual cleaning. The traditions that they had followed were more important than what the Son of God was revealing to them in so many great and remarkable ways.
You too may be struggling with offense because things that you are seeing or hearing just don’t line up with what you have been doing for years in your church, home, or community. You just don’t how God is in something “new” or just traditionally different. I assure you that if you seek after the kingdom of God and his righteousness you will not only have provision but peace and wisdom. Not just earthly wisdom but wisdom from another world. One that could not compare and will not ever compare to religion and it’s mindset to keep you bound.
My friend was not an evil woman. She was doing what she thought that she should. Religion makes your bondage ambiguous. It is not easy to see. Everyone around her acted the same way, most of the time. Religious people have a way of manipulating the situation, unless Jesus shows up. I am sure that the Pharisees thought that they were doing “the work of the Lord”. They were zealous for the life that they lived. But Jesus showed up!
What they did not see was Jesus had come to set them free by fulfilling the law and teaching them the Kingdom of God and the better way. My friend was sick for many years before her heart gave out. She confessed to me that she had let those offenses and bitterness go because if she could not, God would not forgive her. We talked about the Bible often. Me being in my 30’s and her in her 80’s there were a few things I could teach her because she was seeing Jesus work through me. She was questioning what religion had taught her.
I know that there were Pharisees that laid down offenses and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We all need to lay down the offenses, forget about the dogma that religion has bound us in and put on the Lord Jesus Christ. We need to follow the lead of the Word and the Holy Spirit and take the limits off God.
May His kingdom come and will be done in your life.