Avoiding Hypocrisy - and how it moved me to other problems

Jesus really rails against hypocrisy in the sermon on the Mount (and other places). He is driving at the point that our heart must be right when we do what we do (pray, give, etc.). I was taught this all my life (a good thing). One false idea that I associated with it (somehow - and I think it may relate to being a recovering legalist) was that really just enjoying something made it a bad motive. I thought that if I really enjoyed helping old people, for instance, that I would lose any reward in heaven because I loved it so much (honestly, I don't mind it, but it isn't my favorite past time). I've known this was a wrong idea in the last 13 years of my life or so, but it took a while to figure that out - and I still battle with it all the time. One very practical way this battle came up was in the area of leading worship. I love playing guitar - and practice can be a blast - and to lead people in worship is wonderful. But somehow I feared truly admitting this - because maybe then because I enjoyed it, the benefit would be lost. I'm sure this makes no sense to some, but others must get this. I didn't admit this truth about my love for leading worship until a couple years ago.

It was just today as Men's Bible Study that we were looking at Matthew 6 and some teaching on hypocrites that I put together where my erroneous thoughts on enjoying serving God came from (maybe not all of them came from being a recovering legalist - but certainly it's played a huge part).