The Cup Experiment

“Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisees! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean.

Matthew 23:25-26

I’ve read this verse many times, and it’s one of those verses that you read and say “Because Jesus said it, it must be true”, but we never try it out to see if it is a logical analogy. One day, while doing dishes, I noticed exactly what Jesus said as it played out right before my eyes, and in the consciousness of that moment, I was so amazed.

I called it ‘The Cup Experiment’.

Suppose you have a dirty cup that needs to be washed. If you decide to focus only on the outer part of the cup and the let the water run down its sides from the bottom, just the outer part of the cup will get cleaned because gravity will only pull the water down.

But if you let the water run inside the cup, the water will eventually overflow and, without any effort of yours, run over and out to the body of the cup and clean it too.

Jesus is so wise!

I remember when the craze of ‘Branding’ took the world by storm. Everyone was all about packaging and physical appeal. There were brands that kept the original content only to change the packaging of the product to attract new customers. It slowly moved from product packaging to human packaging. You could never tell what or who lay underneath layers of make-up.

Same person 😲

 

You could never know what happens in the privacy of homes when the camera shutters are closed. The words that are written on social media platforms could never align with the words that come out daily from the lips of the hands that type.

People are more concerned about how they are seen than who they really are.

This was the issue with the religious leaders in those days. They were more interested in their outward ‘godly’ appearance than their character, and Jesus called it out.

When we spend more time on our outward appearance, trying to look good enough to be accepted by whatever standard is in vogue, we only end up living a lie.

God is more interested in our hearts than anything else.

So make the decision to focus on what is most important.

Don’t copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.

Romans 12:2