In whom there is no deceit.

Most of us know the story of Nathanael's prejudice against Nazareth in the first chapter of John. When Philip told him that he had found the messiah, Nathanael scoffed and asked rhetorically, "Can anything good come out of Nazareth?" When Jesus saw Nathanael, he declared him as an Israelite "in whom there is no deceit" (v. 47). Of course the prejudice displayed was wrong on Nathanael's part, but what was Jesus praising? The fact that he was straightforward, not hypocritical. We know from the Synoptics and later in John that Jesus loved the prostitute and the tax-collector. What he hated the most was hypocrites and the hypocrites tend to be the religious folk--church-goers. I need to try and be more straight-forward with my sin. If I don't, that means I'm presenting something to others that is not in fact true of myself--hypocrisy.