Thursday, September 11, 2008

what I think

Well I have a lot on my mind so here goes one of my rants. And If I offend someone I'm sorry but this is how I feel. There have been a few things going on lately that have really got me thinking . Why is it that Christians are always labeled by the secular world as hypocrites? It seems that when something goes wrong or someone makes a decision that isn’t right and a Christian tries to help they automatically get called a hypocrite? I think to answer this question we need to look at the church as a whole and put ourselves in the shoes of the secular world. If you step back and look at the church as a whole we can easily find the answer. We have so many people in this world walking around professing to be Christians and then completely deny their faith by the way they act. I mean when you have some one like Pastor Jeremiah Wright saying things like “The government gives them the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing ‘God Bless America.’ No, no, no, God damn America, that’s in the Bible for killing innocent people. God damn America for treating our citizens as less than human. God damn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme.”.
How is the world not going to see this a hypocritical? I mean everything he says he veils in Christianity and makes it look like that’s what all Christians think. There are many other examples of “popular” preachers that give Christians a bad name. Fred Phelps, Pat Robertson just to name a couple. But I think we need to look a little closer to home, and look at the individual parts of the church that make the body.
I was raised in church my entire life. I accepted the Lord as my savior when I was 8 years old. I didn’t quite fully understand the full meaning of being a Christian but I knew I sinned and I need to be forgiven. My walk with the Lord was strong for the next 3 or 4 years, then I hit Jr. High. I still had all of the same friends that I had in grade school but things were different. I realized I was using bad language more and not praying as much as I used to and as I entered high school things only got worse. I drank quite a bit in high school and then I got into pornography. Things at that point were just about as bad as they could be, until my friend Paul got interested in church. I took him on a friend day and a few months later Paul gave his life to Christ. The next few months were hard for me because Paul changed, I didn’t have my drinking buddy anymore. And not to mention Paul already knew the bible better then I did, this pushed me back to God faster then anything else could have. I started to change and low and behold my witness started to come back.
That is just a part of my testimony. There is a lot more I could say but I just can’t type it all. But the reason I put that in there is because in all things I want to be transparent. I think that is where the problem lies in the local churches. There is no transparency in most churches, and this is where the hypocrite word comes in. I think people come in off the streets who have never been to church before want to know that the people who are teaching them are real. Not just the teachers but the Media guy, the praise and worship leader, the deacons and elders and the list goes on. The last thing you want to happen is for someone to come to church for the first time and say..WOW that person goes to church? I saw them the other day doing this and this, or I saw some pictures of them on the internet that looked they weren’t Christians at all. I am guilty of this. Sometimes I do things that I know aren’t pleasing to God. But I know in my heart I need to change. I don’t want anyone to call me a hypocrite. It’s hard to live a blameless life but as someone who holds a position in the church I feel I owe that to God. So before the next time you go and do something or say something you know is wrong..think about it and ask yourself , Is this bringing glory to the throne of God? Trust me, it will humble you real fast. It did me.

2 comments:

carrie said...

I think that was very transparent for you to write this. We all mess up sometimes and act inconsistently, but being honest about it and striving for holiness is the point.

good post.

Rachel said...

But we also need to not be quick to judge. There are certain more "visible" sins that tend to be thought of as "worse" - when all sin is the same in God's eyes. They may curse, but I am prideful. They may be a homosexual, but I am not a good steward. There is one verse in the Bible that puts disobeying parents on the level with murder!
I think when we see someone not living as a Christian, maybe we need to "speak the truth with love", but also we may need to look at ourselves and make sure we're living right.