“But I don’t feel like it. Should I do it even if my heart is not in it? Doesn’t that make me a hypocrite?” I often hear statements like this from sincere individuals who don’t want to live a false life. They don’t want to put up a front making it look like their heart is somewhere when perhaps it isn’t. Rather than “looking like” or giving an appearance that might not be consistent with who they are, they pull back from doing a certain action because they think that if they did it then they would be a hypocrite because their heart wasn’t really behind the action. Hypocrisy is when a person pretends to have virtues, moral or religious beliefs, principles, etc., that he or she does not actually possess, especially a person whose actions belie stated beliefs.
The apostle John writes in 3 John 11 “Beloved, do not imitate what is evil, but what is good. He who does good is of God, but he who does evil has not seen God.” We are encouraged to imitate what is good. We are not just to do what is good when we have the right feelings or emotions. We are to imitate or copy what is good at all times. This is the right thing to do.
Lord Jesus help us to do good even when our heart is not in the action.
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