Category Archives: Social Issues

When we look at most cultural issues from a Christian perspective, there usually seems to be two sides to every argument. When we look at the issue of abortion, there are the pro-lifers and the pro-choicers. The issue of same-sex marriage has been a hot topic recently in Christian circles. We are labeled as homophobes and bigots because most people who consider themselves Christians are opposed to the idea of same-sex marriage. Then you have those who consider homosexuality a normal, natural state. The issue of alcohol has two camps – prohibitionists, and those who consider the consumption of alcohol to be well within the scope of living a Christian life. We have even taken sides on some of the basics of Christianity. Consider the subject of faith, or Faith, depending on which camp you reside in. There are those who consider faith to be a verb – something which is exercised. There are others who consider Faith as a noun – something which one possesses and uses to obtain all that God wishes for every Christian. There are people on both sides of the fence when it comes to the subject of grace as well. There are those who believe that Gods grace will cover any sin, therefore it’s OK to sin as often as you like. God’s grace will not hold the sin against you. Then there are those who believe that grace alone is not enough. One must also follow myriads of rules, regulations, “suggestions” and other things so that God will know you are serious enough to warrant His grace.

Why do we so often relegate such things to either one side or the other? We polarize nearly everything that is spiritual to the point that we often see those who think differently than us as “The Enemy” – even though they are Christians. It’s often difficult for us to see any other opinion than our own because we tend to be “black and white” types of people. We see sin as sin and even a little sin is enough to affect our lives. This is because we are made in the image of God and He sees sin the same way. The difference is that while God does not tolerate sin, He has great compassion for the sinner. Another difference is that we often don’t recognize our own propensity for sinning. We are quick to point out the moral failures of others while overlooking our own shortcomings. This is what Jesus was talking about in Matthew 7 when He said “Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” As Christians, we must do some judging, or we will treat sin and holiness the same way. We must judge between right and wrong. We are taught to beware of false teachers, which we would not recognize unless we were judging their actions and motives. What Jesus says in Matthew 7 is to not judge others when we ourselves have sin in our lives. We often don’t see the sin in our own lives. Or we choose to overlook it because someone else’s sin is much worse than our own. So we split into two camps. Ours and Theirs.

What if there were another option? What if there were hundreds of options instead of just the two we so often see? I think that there are. I think that we can reach a compromise in most instances without compromising on sinfulness. Those of us who have children know this instinctively already, although it may not be something that has reached conscious thought yet. When two of my children come to me with a misunderstanding, I usually have two stories. The conversation would go something like this:

Kristen: “Dad, Heather broke the lamp in the living room! She just knocked it over on purpose. I saw her do it!”

Heather:”No I didn’t! It wasn’t there when I came in. She put it in front of me so I would trip on it!”

Kristen: “No I didn’t! You just pushed it over! I watched you do it.”

Heather: “You pushed it in front of me. It wasn’t even there when I came in the room!”

What you can determine from this conversation is that there is probably an element of truth in someone’s story, but neither of these stories is the truth. Usually, it goes something like this: Heather came into the room and was practicing her ballet. As she twirled across the room, Kristen came into the room and saw her twirl into the lamp, which Heather didn’t see during her twirl. In order to avoid getting in trouble for breaking something by being careless, Heather blamed Kristen for placing the lamp in her path.

There is a lesson to be learned here for us as well. Two sides to a story are often not enough to determine the real truth. It’s easy for someone to be vehemently against homosexuality until their son or daughter tells them that they are gay.  It’s easy for someone who has never dealt with an alcoholic to justify drinking based on the Bible. But to someone who has dealt with alcohol abuse, the verses read entirely different. Circumstances often change points of view. When it comes to grace, the same is true. It’s easy to be critical of others when we think of ourselves more highly than we ought. The Bible makes it clear that we all have come short of Gods idea of “good”. None of us can say that we are better than others because we have all missed it. The good news is that Gods extends His grace to us.

Grace is often misunderstood, even by mature Christians. We still hear Christians talk about what we have to do to be Christians. Not the commands of Jesus, but the man-made things that we must do in order to be worthy of God’s grace. Grace is grace. It’s not something that we have to earn. In fact, grace that is earned is not grace at all.

The next time we feel compelled to take sides on an issue with another Christian, what if we were to do what Jesus commanded: Take care of our own sin and let God deal with everyone else’s. It’s amazing how unified we could become if we were to only do that simple thing. Just deal with our own sin. After all, isn’t that hard enough?

I spoke to a friend the other day. He said “I like Christianity as a philosophy. I just don’t like most Christians.” I said “Welcome to the club!” Cynicism aside, what is it about Christians that can be so annoying to so many people? After all, aren’t we supposed to make more disciples? We’ve put ourselves behind the 8-ball so to speak because there are so many negative stereotypes about Christians. Most of them brought on by ourselves.

Probably the biggest objectionable trait of Christians is that they are hypocritical. And we are. It’s true. Unfortunately, try as hard as I might, I continue to do the wrong thing occasionally. There is a bumper sticker that says “Christians aren’t perfect, just forgiven”. While that can come across as trite and even demeaning to an extent, it’s true. We didn’t become perfect or cease all sinful activity when we became Christians. We now should be able to recognize sinful activity and do our best to avoid it, but we are still tempted, and, sometimes, we give in. That’s where grace comes in. As Christians, we understand the concept of grace. Non-Christians don’t. It’s difficult for someone who isn’t familiar with the character of God, or for someone who has a distorted view of the character of God, to understand the concept of grace. The concept that not only would the victim of this crime (God) substitute his own son to pay the penalty for your crime, but that he would then adopt you as his own child as well. It just doesn’t make sense to a non-Christian.

But there are also things that we bring on ourselves when it comes to hypocrisy as well. Take religion, for example. You know, those rules we make up in order to clarify for those less intelligent than ourselves how to follow God. If you’re over 40, your Sundays probably looked a lot different as a child than they do now. One of the reasons was because of the commandment that tells us to keep the Sabbath Day holy. Remember that one? Forget that the biblical Sabbath is actually Saturday. It was OK to mow your lawn, go shopping, watch TV etc on Saturday. But come Sunday, all activity outside of church became taboo. Our family didn’t shop or even eat out on Sundays. To do so would have meant that someone else would have had to “work” in order for us to shop or eat. We were not going to be put into a position of making someone else break one of the 10 commandments.  We even had “blue laws” that kept businesses closed on Sundays.

We didn’t watch TV on Sundays. Well, until after the Sunday night service. That put us close enough to Monday to make it OK I think. Since there was no such thing as Sunday night football back then, it meant that I didn’t grow up watching football on Sundays. No, my Sundays were usually spent taking a nap. That probably explains my fondness for Sunday afternoon naps as an adult. Somewhere, over the years, our culture changed. It is now OK to eat out, shop, mow the lawn and even stay awake all day on Sunday. As long as we don’t do those things during church time. Well – except for the staying awake part. That one is OK to do during church. So my question is: was it OK all along, or am I somehow wrong in being active on Sunday now?

Some of you remember when it was wrong for a woman to wear pants (Deuteronomy 22:5), jewelry (1 Timothy 2, 1 Peter 3)  or makeup (I’m not sure where this came from specifically, but see the last reference for good measure). While I have no personal experience with this, it was a big deal for some. Of course, now, women not only wear pants, jewelry and makeup, they wear the fancy clothes that the previously mentioned verses specifically condemned, and they wear hats the size of patio umbrellas.

I won’t go into some of the other taboos from my childhood in detail, but we’ll add in some generalized prohibitions such as dancing, going to movies and drinking.  And we would find it difficult to believe in our enlightened age of technology, but I know of a pastor who was fired by his church because they found out that he owned a television. Nowadays, we don’t think much of doing things that previous generations considered worthy of eternal damnation. Or at least a Sunday without football. My question remains the same: were those things wrong, or not? If they weren’t wrong then, why did we say they were? If they were wrong then, why are they not still considered sinful today?

Besides the obvious example of people who call themselves Christians and then still participate in sinful behavior, the above examples are one of the reasons that Christians are accused of being hypocrites. We flip-flop on issues of sin. We major on the minors. How appealing is Christianity to those observing from the outside? What hope are we offering those facing serious obstacles in life that the church has the answers? How can we convince a world that desperately needs Christ that we can point them in the right direction?

The biggest thing that we as Christians can do is to model the concept of grace. Grace toward unbelievers who may not agree with all of our beliefs, but especially grace toward other believers who do not believe as we do. It’s time to major on the majors and let God sort the rest out. If we were to stop focusing on sinful behavior and start to focus on people, the world would notice. God didn’t send Jesus to the world to condemn it, but to save the people in it (John 3:17). Why then are we so quick to condemn, but slow to offer salvation? It’s time the church stepped up and became the force of influence that it was meant to be. Focus on the people, not their sin. God loves people enough to pursue them even in their sin (Romans 5:8). Shouldn’t we do the same?

I read a Facebook post recently that kind of sums how many of us have felt at one time or another. I’ll paraphrase, but the gist of the post was this: “How did I end up here? I hate my life! This is not what I had planned for my life. I don’t know how I got here.” I can sympathize with this poster, and at times could even empathize with them. And while I’m not sure that Facebook is the proper place to seek help for the situation they found themselves in, it got me thinking. How did I get here? Many of us have suddenly taken inventory of our lives and realized that this is not where we thought we would be at this point in our journey. We wake up one day with the realization that things are not what we think they should be. Missed opportunities fuel regret for what might have been. Disappointment sets in and before we know it, we have that melancholy feeling that nothing is good.

The thing is, we become what we are. Think about it this way: I’m not overweight because I ate a big meal last night, or a big breakfast this morning. I’m overweight because I ate a big breakfast this morning and larger-than-necessary meals for the past several decades. The truth is, I’m faced with a decision every time I make the choice to eat something. How healthy is this? How much should I allow myself to eat? And as much as I can tell you how healthy I eat, the fact is, I’m overweight. So in spite of my efforts to make healthy choices in eating, there are times when I override my own sense of health and make poor choices in what, or how much to eat. Not all the time, but enough that it has affected my weight. This has happened one choice and a few ounces at a time. I didn’t suddenly gain an extra 30 pounds yesterday. It has been the accumulation of years of one bad choice at a time.

The same is true for your life. You have become what you are. Some of you may think that one bad decision has landed you in the state of life you find yourself. But it wasn’t. I’ll give a couple of biblical examples. Think about David. He wasn’t born king. In fact, he was born the youngest of 8 sons. He was a shepherd. His choices helped determined what he became. His first choice came when he was faced with a lion attacking his flock of sheep. Should he run for help? Should he hide until the lion had gone? He made the decision to fight the lion. And he killed it. Maybe not the decision I would have made, but I’m not a king. After that decision, when a bear attacked the flock, his victory over the lion made the decision to stand and fight a little easier. He killed the bear also. These two decisions could have affected his life differently. Of course, either the bear or lion could have killed David. But they didn’t. They made him stronger and more confident. Qualities he needed when facing a giant of a man named Goliath. His victory over Goliath opened the door for David to work in the palace. And another of his choices helped keep him there. He chose to play an instrument. He not only played, he practiced and composed his own songs. He could have chosen to read books while watching the sheep. Or dance. Or weave baskets out of the grass. He chose to write and play music. See, God used the natural abilities of a shepherd to create a king. David wasn’t born a king. He became one. David could have been known as the shepherd who killed a lion. He could have been only a local hero, but he became a king.

Another Old Testament example is Daniel. Daniel could have faded into obscurity as just one of the thousands of captives in a defeated Jewish country. As a prisoner, Daniel made the choice to give God a chance to work. He asked the captain of the guards to allow his companions and him to eat only beans instead of the rich diet they were given. Daniel could have gone along with life. After all, he suddenly finds himself in a difficult situation through no fault of his own. He could have allowed this situation to define him, but he didn’t. He became someone different. His choice of diet earned him the respect of the guards and a place in the king’s court. He was schooled in the culture of his new captors, but he never accepted his captors’ culture as his own. He chose to hold to the beliefs of his youth. He made a conscious decision – a choice – to not participate in the culture of his new life as a captive in a foreign country. He leveraged his position in the king’s court to interpret the dreams of the king; an act which not only spared his life, but the lives of all of the wise men in the country.  When faced with the decision to break the law and stop praying, Daniel chose to continue praying, even though it meant that his life was on the line. It was a decision that shaped his future; not one on which his future depended, or by which he was defined, but one that shaped the direction his future was to take. It was a fork in the road. His decision caused him to be thrown into a cave with lions. And again, Daniel didn’t allow one choice to define him. He made another choice in the cave and prayed. He could have resigned himself to his fate. But he didn’t. He chose to change his situation through prayer.

The common denominator in both of these stories is that God had a plan for both David and Daniel. While I don’t believe that God forced David or Daniel into the place they each arrived at, I do believe that God influenced the outcomes of some of their decisions. But the decisions were theirs to make. I believe that God gave David the ability to kill both a lion and a bear. However, the choice to stand and fight or to run and hide were Davids’ decisions to make. Daniel was spared the fate of becoming lion chow, but the decision to refuse to stop praying in defiance of the king’s law was his to make. The Bible is filled with stories of men and women who made decisions without knowing the outcome. In fact, When Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were facing the prospect of being thrown into a furnace for their beliefs, they said “If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”  They made a choice that day to stand up for their beliefs without knowing whether God would spare them or not. They chose to defy the king, even if it meant their death. They too could have faded into the journals of history and not be known as anything other than a few Hebrew boys who were killed for standing up to the king. Instead, they became more than unknown slaves in a foreign country because of their decision that day.

The fact is, God has a plan for you too. Your choices will determine who you become. So where are you today? Is this the life you envisioned living? What decisions will you make today that will shape your future? Will you choose to eat healthy?  It’s not that one decision is necessarily better than another one, but each choice you make today will shape your tomorrow. Where do you see yourself next year? Make choices today that support that vision of your future. Where will you be in 5 years? In 10 years? At retirement? What kind of father or mother will you be? What kind of grandparent will you be? Where do you want your career to take you? The choices you make today will decide the person you are becoming. More importantly, where do you fit into God’s plan? Will you choose to trust God in difficult situations, or will you resign yourself to your fate?  The Bible says that when we become Christians, our minds are to be renewed.  That doesn’t mean that we always make wise choices after becoming a Christian, but it does mean that we have the wisdom of God to help us make the choices that will shape who he wants us to be tomorrow.  Ultimately, that’s what matters. Are you making choices that will point you toward the destiny that God has planned for you? Be a David. Be a Daniel. Build on your past and even your present to push on toward the life that God wants you to live.

With the recent news surrounding the shooting of Trayvon Martin and the subsequent acquittal of George Zimmerman, I think that it is appropriate to address the subject that this has become, one of racial prejudice. Even among those who purport to be Christians, the issue has polarized us to the point that we become openly inflammatory to those who disagree with our particular bent on the subject.  We should realize is that this is not an issue that originated with slavery in America. Long before Africans were captured and sold into slavery in America there was prejudice against what were perceived to be “inferior” races of people. Even before the time of Christ, prejudice existed. It is during the time of Christ that I want to focus. If anyone can model how we as Christians are to deal with the issue of prejudice it is Jesus.

In the book of John, we read an account of Jesus and his disciples that has prejudicial overtones. Jesus and his disciples are traveling from Judea to Galilee. On the way, they stop at a town in the region of Samaria, where the disciples go to the town to buy some food.  Jesus chooses to remain behind and wait for them rather than accompany them into town. It is there that he has a conversation with a woman from the town. As Jesus strikes up this conversation, she jumps right to the prejudicial point. In John 4:9 she says ” ‘You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?’ (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.)” We are not given any context for this statement that Jews do not associate with Samaritans. Just the statement. In order to get the proper context for what is happening here, we need to look at some text in the Old Testament, as well as some extra-biblical content.

Samaritans were people from the region of Samaria, which is in northern Israel. In 2 Kings 17, we read the account of the conquest of Northern Israel by the Assyrian King Shalmaneser. At that time, Israel was split into the northern and southern kingdoms, following the death of Solomon. The capital of the northern kingdom was Samaria. The king of Northern Israel had rebelled against the Assyrians and had tried to form an alliance with Egypt. When the King of Assyria found out about it, he attacked Samaria and captured it. In verse 6 we read that the Israelites who were living in Samaria were all deported to Assyria. Following this deportation, verse 24 tells us that Assyrians were sent to live in Samaria. These Assyrians came to live in what used to be Israel. They brought with them their pagan culture, which included poly theism, the worship of many gods. When the Judean exile ended, and the exiles began returning home,  they intermarried with the Assyrians who were now living in Samaria to create both a mixed race and a mixed religious culture, mixing pagan religion with Judaism.

According to Samaritans, Mount Gerizim was the original Holy Place of the Israelites. The Samaritans claim that their temple on Mount Gerizim was the original sanctuary for the Jewish people before the exile. However, post-exile Israel made its capital in Jerusalem and built a temple there. This created a schism between the Samaritans and other Jews. As you are probably aware, the Jewish people take their religion very seriously. Because of this, both Jewish and Samaritan religious leaders taught that it was wrong to have any contact with the opposite group. Samaritans and Jews had a mutual hatred for each other based not only on racial prejudice but on religious prejudice as well.

If we’re going to look at how Jesus handled prejudice, we must look at things from a Jewish perspective since Jesus was Jewish. The Samaritan woman that Jesus met at the well that day had several strikes against her from a Jewish perspective. First of all, she was a Samaritan. Even though she was of a race that was hated by Jews, Jesus initiated a conversation with her. He not only initiated the conversation, he was offering her the same thing that he was offering the Jews. In Matthew 15, we read the account of a Canaanite woman who approached Jesus about her demon-posessed daughter. Jesus didn’t even answer this woman. Finally, after his disciples complained to him about her, his reply was “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel”. In other words, Jesus was telling her that his current mission only involved Israel. Yet here in John, we find Jesus having a spiritual conversation with a woman who was hated by Jews because of her paganized religion and racial mixture.

Second, she was a woman. That’s probably a little obvious, but needs to be stated. Women in the culture of the day were generally treated like property. Kind of like your car, which means that they were not necessarily mis-treated, they were just treated like property. For Jesus to initiate the conversation and ask for a drink was unusual. According to the culture, the woman should have been the one to offer the drink. Also, if Jesus had drunk from her cup or jar, he would have been ceremonially unclean, because she was a Samaritan. In verse 27 we find the disciples returning and being surprised that Jesus was having a conversation with a woman. Women who were not acquaintances were not typically involved in conversation with men. Especially considering this woman had a less than stellar reputation in her community. She was, according to Jewish law, an adulteress. That brings us to the third strike against her from a Jewish perspective.

According to Jewish law, she was not only an adulteress, she was a fornicator. When Jesus asked her to go get her husband, she replied that she didn’t have a husband. She left out the details, but Jesus knew anyway. He correctly told her that she had had five husbands and the man she was living with now was not her husband – a fact which could have gotten her stoned according to the law. Obviously, from a religious, as well as a cultural standpoint, Jesus should have had nothing to do with this woman. Yet he not only spoke to her, he was kind to her. She even tried to bait him into an argument based on their differences. If you look at how she worded her statement in verse 19, she was making a stand on her own prejudices. She said “Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain”. This was not a question, but a fact for her. THIS is the correct place to worship God. She goes on to say “But you Jews…” Have you ever heard that tone before? I’m a musician, so I’ve heard it like this: “This black stuff they call music nowadays….” or “That worship music you play is so white!” But Jesus wasn’t baited into a prejudicial argument. He clearly stated the fact that both views had their flaws. He said that the time was coming when neither side would be right.

How often are we willing to admit that our side may have its flaws? Can we admit that both Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman made mistakes that affected each of them differently, but both of them negatively? I’m reasonably certain that if he had it to do over again, George Zimmerman may not be so quick to follow young Trayvon through the neighborhood. I’m fairly certain that if he had it to do over again, Trayvon would have chosen another route home and/or may have walked away from a confrontation.  Do our own racial prejudices affect how we do life? Certainly – for both African-Americans and Caucasians. We all carry around certain prejudices that we may have picked up from our parents, or developed because of the media or negative experiences with others. I attend a multi-cultural church. I’m aware of the balancing act that we have to purposely address to make sure that we are culturally sensitive to all of the different cultures represented at the church. Jesus had the same issues. He was raised by people who believed that the Samaritans were people to be hated because of their beliefs as well as their status as a mixed breed of people. He heard the stories as he was growing up of how the Samaritans had perverted the law of God. He was taught to look at these people as lesser human beings than other Jews. His culture taught him that women were inferior to men. His religious leaders and his own father taught him that adulterers were worthy of death. And yet he purposely hung out at a well outside a Samaritan town to talk to an adulteress Samaritan woman. Why? because Jesus saw beyond race, class, society, the media and all of the other factors that told him to classify this woman and he saw a person who needed what he had.

We are surrounded every day by things that attempt to get us to classify people. And we have something that they desperately need. Let’s look at others like Jesus did. We are told to view Trayvon Martin as a black teen who was the victim of a senseless crime and as true as that may be, we have to see beyond that. Trayvon Martin was a person who needed Jesus. George Zimmerman has become the poster boy for racial profiling to some. George Zimmerman is a person who needs Jesus. It’s not about our race, our religion, or our social class. It’s all about Jesus. When will we begin to see that we may have come to America on different ships, but we’re all in the same boat now?

I remember getting dressed for church as a kid. I didn’t pick out my best pair of jeans. I just knew better. Sunday was for getting dressed up. For some it still is. Not in the literal sense of the word, but, much as a superhero does, they put on their church costume and assume a different identity. SuperChristian.

Comedian Bill Engvall has a routine about stupid people who don’t realize they’re stupid. He says that they should just wear a sign that says “I’m Stupid” so that we could easily recognize them and know that we couldn’t rely on them. I think we need a similar sign for some Christians. We should have SuperChristian signs that are worn to identify the ones who are dressed up. You know the ones. They’re the ones who talk about God’s goodness and kindness on Sunday and then complain all week about their lot in life. How they don’t know if they’re going to make it or not. The “what if-ers”. What if they lay me off? What if the diagnosis is not good? What if….? They should have a sign.

We also have the incognito Christians. At church, they praise the loudest, they pray the loudest, they are always visible. But at work, they don’t even pray over their lunch at the cafeteria. No one would even know that they are a Christian unless they went to church with them. They should have a sign too.

Of course, we have the opposite people as well. Blenders. These are the ones who blend in at church. When they attend. You may think they are a first-time guest because you’ve never seen them at church before. But they’ve been coming for 12 years, off and on. But at work, they have Thomas Kincade screen savers on their computer, the Bible Verse A-Day calendar hanging at their desk and an open Bible beside their phone. They can be seen praying at lunch, before work and even during work. Some think they are sleeping, but they’re really praying. Some pray a good 3-4 hours a day on the job. When anyone has a problem, they go to these people. Because they have an open Bible on their desk. They don’t read it, but it’s there. These people definitely need a sign.

Why do we feel the need to pretend? I think it’s because we’ve been conditioned to pretend. There is a stereotype that we have bought into. At the risk of sounding racist, it would be like expecting every person of Italian descent to walk around with a bowl of pasta saying”At’s a matta you? Why you no feel good?” Or expecting every white person to drink martinis and hang out at the country club. Or expecting everyone from West Virginia to have a family tree that doesn’t fork. See, we don’t expect people to act like their stereotypes. Unless they’re Christians. Then we expect them to look, act and talk a certain way. Why is that?

As Christians, we should be different from non-Christians. But that doesn’t mean that we have to dress weird, or talk weird or be weird. It just means that we believe in a God that we can’t see, but we know is there. That’s different. It means that we believe that God’s Son came to earth and paid the penalty for a crime that He didn’t commit and because He did that, we are now considered to be Children of God as well. We will never die and live forever with God where we will be positioned as the leaders of a new earth that is ruled by the God we believe in. If that doesn’t make you different nothing will. We are different. It’s because we believe in God that we don’t get stressed out by things that others do. We believe that our God loves us and will take care of us in spite of our circumstances. That’s different. We don’t get angry at others because we believe that our God told us to love our enemies. We still have enemies, but we don’t treat them the way others treat them. We’re kind to our enemies because that’s what God told us to do. That’s different. We talk to a God that we can’t see, asking Him for things that we believe He will do for us and for others. That’s different. We don’t fear death because we don’t believe that death is the end. We believe that death is merely the beginning of our new life with God. That’s different. We are different.

Too often, we try to show others how different we are. That’s when it goes from different to “different”. We pray loudly in front of others so they will know that we are “different”. The Bible tells us in Matthew 6 not to do this. Those that do should have a sign. We plaster our workspace with all kinds of Christian paraphernalia so others will know how “different” we are. There’s nothing wrong with being public with your faith, but you should be warned. If your public actions do not back up your public displays, you need a sign, because you make Christianity look bad by professing something publicly that you do not practice publicly. We moan and complain to others about our jobs, our spouse and our children. Then we offer to pray for others who face difficulties. If God won’t listen to you about your problems, why would I trust Him to listen to you about mine? You should just wear a sign.

I think it’s time for Christians to live like Christians, not just act like Christians. We are Children of the Almighty God. If you really believe that, what would that look like? Do you really believe that God is capable of handling any situation that you may encounter? Do you really believe that God loves you? The Bible says that those who have faith must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek him. Do you have faith? Do you not only believe that God exists, but that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him? According to the Bible, you must do both. We tend to believe that He exists, but we’re on our own until the sweet by and by. If we simply acted like real Christians and not like our stereotype, I believe that evangelism as we know it would cease to exist. Why wouldn’t others want what we have? Love. Joy. Peace. Patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Who couldn’t use a little more of those things in their lives? That’s what we should live. Instead, what we often show are rules, judgement and general weirdness. It’s time to take off the signs and just live what we believe. Not show what we believe. Just live like we believe it. Really believe it. After all, that is what really makes us different in the first place.