Let's Be REAL!

This post is actually a comment I wrote in response to the article Division..which was wonderfully written by my friend Mike

I realize it sways somewhat off topic from Division amoung Christians, but I just started typing and this popped up :) It was suggested that I post it here as I was long overdue for a new post, partially due to a recently suspected affair with myspace. Not to worry - all of my blogging will always be here at Blogger!



The older I get, the more I realize the impact of showing the Love of Christ to people. I believe people just want relationships with people who are REAL! The Bible says, "it's His kindness that leads us to repentance". Simple acts of kindness done in Christ's name have a deep imact on people.

In my personal experience, I've also noticed many people are frustrated with Christianity because they've seen alot of hypocrisy from Christians. It's seems to be our tendency as humans and even more so as Christians. We pretend we don't struggle with finances, but we pay all of our bills late. We intentionally look away from the girls in tiny swimsuits at the Church beach party, but heaven forbid anyone see our visited website history. Of course, we don't struggle with greed, but we can't give money to the poor because we have too many boat, motorcycle, and camper payments (to use for "fellowship" of course ;) As Christians, we are blessed to know that with Christ we have the ultimate victory, but because of the fall of man and our sin, we don’t always win all of the battles along the way.

People aren't stupid: we look like kids running around with halloween masks and trying to convince everyone that we’re mickey mouse, and to top it all off, we get angrily defensive when then even hint that we’re not!

I’ve observed a couple of interesting perspectives related to how people see this type of hypocrisy: Those that are totally turned off because they know the mask is a bunch of Baloney Sauce, and those that believe we’re perfect and want to be too, only to crash and burn and walk away when they mess up like the rest of us. What really chapps me is when Christians walk around the second group of people like they’re cockroaches to be avoided.

I'm a Christian. I love Jesus & I need Jesus. He's been unbelievably good to me, even though I stink of unworthiness. Until I get to heaven, I'm also a human, which means: I battle with sin and don't always win (hey, that rhymes :).

Of course we always need to be ready to present the straight-forward Truth of the Gospel (that’s what it’s all about after all), but I like what I recently read in an article that mentioned one of Youth For Christ’s mottos: “Love Them Until They Ask Why!”