Matthew 23:25<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Continuing the discourse on the hypocrisy of false leaders, Jesus pointed out that it is possible to publicly look perfectly manicured spiritually, and yet be \u201cfull of extortion and self-indulgence.\u201d Jesus introduced two secret vices that disqualify any leader who wants God\u2019s approval. These are extortion and self-indulgence. Extortion means selfishly making people do things that they normally would not want to do, or tactfully forcing people to do things in your favor that they ordinarily would not want to do. Many people use their positions of authority in leadership to \u201csubtly pressurize\u201d people to do things in favor of the leader, and this is pure evil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Self-indulgence is using the prestige and freedoms of leadership to promote and nurture a lifestyle of unbridled pleasure and self-interest. Self-indulgence means that you permit Self to operate freely, and when a leader uses the platform of ministry or position to authorize the free satisfaction of selfish desires, this is double evil. For whatever reasons, I must not encourage or promote any form of self-indulgence or extortion, in Jesus name. Amen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYes Lord, this is my prayer. No self-indulgence. No extortion. In me or around me. In Jesus name. Amen.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Matthew 23:25 \u201cWoe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you cleanse the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of extortion and self-indulgence.\u201d Continuing the discourse on the hypocrisy of false leaders, Jesus pointed out that it is possible to publicly look perfectly manicured spiritually, and yet be \u201cfull of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7384,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,23],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4379","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-blog","category-reflections-from-matthew"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Reflections-from-Matthew.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4379","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4379"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4379\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4381,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4379\/revisions\/4381"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4379"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4379"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/restlesspilgrim.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4379"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}