It's not your shortcomings that make you a hypocrite; it's hiding them and pretending you don't have any! Note two things about hypocrisy: (1) It's as natural as breathing. It appeals to our ego. We get hooked on it because it looks so impressive, and results in our getting lots of positive strokes. Who doesn't enjoy that? (2) Dealing with it is hard. It's easier to train a new Christian than to retrain an old one steeped in religion. To win the battle with hypocrisy you must first admit you've a problem with it. Only then can the Holy Spirit begin a work of deliverance and set you on the path to freedom. But be warned, it's a long and brutal fight. Our desire to look good in front of others dies slowly—if at all. Paul writes: "This I say therefore, and testify in the Lord, that ye henceforth walk not as other Gentiles walk, in the vanity of their mind, Having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God through the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart: Who being past feeling have given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But ye have not so learned Christ; If so be that ye have heard him, and have been taught by him, as the truth is in Jesus: That ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts; And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another." (vv. 17-25).
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