How do I pretend before God? - Pretending - TouchPoints

Amos 5:21I hate all your show and pretense—the hypocrisy of your religious festivals and solemn assemblies.

Jeremiah 3:10“She has only pretended to be sorry. I, the Lord, have spoken!”

Psalm 50:16-17But God says to the wicked: “Why bother reciting my decrees and pretending to obey my covenant? For you refuse my discipline and treat my words like trash.”

James 1:22-25But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it.

You may pretend with your actions, religious practices, false repentance, or superficial obedience, but God knows your heart.

Isaiah 29:13, 15And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote. . . . “The Lord can’t see us,” they say. “He doesn’t know what’s going on!”

Matthew 15:7-8“You hypocrites! Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, ‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.’”

You may pretend with words and even with thoughts. If you keep doing this, you might eventually fool even yourself into thinking your motives are sincere, and worse yet, that God does too.