Grand Opening.....of me

So, this is my first time blogging...

Well, welcome to my blog, "unleavened: rising from hypocrisy to freedom".  I hope that something that you read here will inspire you, refresh you, challenge you and most of all free you.

Today was the epitome of a winter day: bitter cold, quiet, still, overcast.  Everything about today lined up with the fact that it was January 31 in the DC metro area.  There were no contradictions.

That's what this blog is about... no, not winter in DC, but living a life that is free of contradictions.  God has been speaking to me for sometime about the inconsistencies in my life, and out of complacency or outright defiance I didn't listen and continued to project one thing and live quite another.  This past Friday I was reading a friend's blog and she featured testimonies of two women that had gone through similar situations and overcome.  Reading their stories and experiencing their transparency completely arrested my spirit and simultaneously empowered me.  It was then that I realized that through my hypocrisy I was rejecting Jesus.  By continuing to live unrighteously, but try and also have a "form of godliness", I was basically telling God that Jesus' sacrifice on the cross wasn't enough to cleanse my sins, that there was nothing that could purify me so why try.  As long as I could keep my mess to myself and outwardly appear that I've got it together, that would just have to do until God could come up with some better atonement for my sins.

God really got my attention later on Friday night when I went to the singles meeting at my church.  My pastor kept mentioning the "leaven of the pharisees," but I had no idea what he was talking about.  At the end of his lesson he revealed what it was.  In Luke 12:1, Jesus warns, "Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy."  It was at that moment that it all made sense.  I recommitted to God and I'm embarking on this journey to sift out the "leaven of the Pharisees" from my life.

This blog is part of this journey.  The Bible says, "we overcome by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony (Revelations 12:11)."  So, I'm taking off all my pretenses and I'm going to open my journey from hypocrisy to freedom up for all of you to travel with me.