Today, Monday January 4 – Romans 2:1-3 – When I was a teenager, I can remember using the hypocrites in the church as an excuse for my own sins and rebellion against God. I’ve heard that Mahatma Gandhi said, in his search for truth as a young man, “I would have become a Christian, until I met some.” What a tragedy that people who try to come across as being so spiritual and religious, are so often the biggest hypocrites and don’t even know it. And they become the biggest obstacle to others who are honestly seeking the truth, and keep them from finding and accepting it. Well, that’s what Paul is dealing with in chapter 2 of Romans. In chapter 1, he was dealing with the heathen and how God handles them. It says that “God gave them up” to go one in their own self-centered lives and suffer the consequences that come when you forget God. It appears that Paul immediately realized, that people that think themselves to be above the heathenistic, humanistic and self-indulgent living described in chapter 1, would stand in self-righteous judgement of them. So he starts out chapter 2 with a stern word for self-righteous hypocrites. He reminds us that we have no right to be the judge of others, especially when we have unconfessed sins and failures in our own lives. It almost looks like God is harder on the hypocrites than he is the heathen. I believe that this is a warning for all us who tend to get a critical and a judgmental spirit to others around us. Over the years, I’ve really struggled with people who I thought had a bad attitude. And then I realized that, I had a really bad attitude toward people who had a bad attitude. I was really no better than they were. I trust God will speak to all of us through this passage as we learn how to let God handle the hypocrites! God bless!