Hello. I am a Christian, and I am a Hypocrite.

If you are reading this, there is a good chance you are either a Christian, or you are not a Christian.  If you are a Christian, chances are you read the title and thought, “Oh great.  Another wacko spouting off and making the rest of us look bad.”  If on the other hand, you are not a Christian, you probably saw this title and thought, “Finally a ‘Christian’ who will admit the truth.”

Since you are both here, allow me to explain myself.  Then you can make up your own mind about me.  Here’s the deal.  I am a Christian.  I take the liberty of claiming that because I am a follower of Christ Jesus.  Not only do I follow His teachings, but I have dedicated my life to living in complete service to Him.  I even go so far as to say that I asked Him to be my Lord, the one who has complete say over my life, and my Savior.  He is my Savior because He took the punishment God had reserved for me because of my wrong-doings (known in our circles as sin)…let me emphasize that.  Jesus took my punishment.  What I deserved, He took upon Himself.  He saved me from it.  Thus He is my Savior.

Here’s the other part of this.  I am a hypocrite.  But I’m probably not the kind of hypocrite you are expecting me to confess to.  I think we can all generally agree that a hypocrite is someone who says one thing, but does another, right?  I would add, though, that typically a hypocrite would be considered someone who says something and then intentionally, knowingly, does the opposite.  Wouldn’t you agree? With that definition in mind, I guess I would have to say that

                                                 I AM AN ACCIDENTAL HYPOCRITE.

I’m not really a boldfaced hypocrite as you, the non-Christian, would claim.  I don’t say that I follow Jesus and obey His commands, and then intentionally break them.  You may not believe me, but I really do try to obey His commands.  The thing is that I’m not perfect.  I mess up…all the time…every single day.  I admit it.  I’m a Christian, but I’m still a sinner…at the same time.  Yes.  That is possible.  In fact, that is the reality of every single person who is a Christian.  As much as we would love to be perfect, we aren’t, and we never will be as long as we are living.

There was only one person who was perfect in the history of the world, and that was JESUS.  Jesus was perfect because He was, is, the Son of God.  He is man in the flesh, but also completely God in the Spirit, with all the power that goes with being God.  That was how He was able to take my punishment, and the punishment of every single person who ever had and whoever will live.  He deserved no punishment of His own, SO HE TOOK MINE…and yours.  Oh, I know.  You are pretty certain that because I am such a hypocrite, whether accidental or not, you are much better than me.  Here’s where I leave the political correctness stuff behind.  You aren’t any better than me.  Hold on now.  Before you flip your wig, I’m not better than you either.  I never said that I was.  When it comes to being human, we are all on the same equal playing field.  The Bible says that ALL men have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.  In other words, everyone, ev-er-y single one, does wrong.  It doesn’t matter how much wrong.  One wrong is the same as a thousand wrongs when it causes us to not measure up to God’s standard of perfection.  You are guilty of it, and so am I.  Flat out.  No ifs, ands, or buts.  It is what it is.  You can argue it until you are blue in the face, but deep down inside there is a part of you that you are desperately trying to squash.  That part that says, “You know she is right.”  You know how I know that?  Because God built everyone of us with this thing called a conscience.  More than that, He put in each of us the innate desire to search for Him.

So if I’m a sinner, and you are a sinner, what is the difference between you and me?  I mean really.  I have already admitted to being an accidental hypocrite.  I have admitted to being no better than you or anyone else.  I admitted to doing wrong every single day.  So what is the difference?  Are you ready for it?  Here it is.  I have been forgiven.  Yep.  That is it.  I have not been forgiven because I’m so special either.  I’ve been forgiven for one simple reason:  I asked.  Oh sure, first I had to admit that I am a sinner.  If I didn’t do that, there was no point in asking for forgiveness in the first place.  After all, if I don’t think I have ever done anything wrong, then what do I need forgiveness for?  But nagging deep down inside of me is the knowledge that I have lied (even little white lies).  I never made a habit of it, but I’ve done it.  I have stolen…a piece of candy when I was a child, and time from my employer when I should have been working.  I’ve been angry and bitter.  I’ve said words I shouldn’t have said.  I have been mean to people.  I’ve been jealous.  I have been ungrateful, rude, disrespectful.  I have gossiped, put my needs before the needs of others, been self-righteous.  The list goes on and on, and is as fresh as yesterday.  I cannot deny that I have done wrong things.  It’s as plain as the nose on my face.  And so is my need for forgiveness.

Every sin is like a brick in a wall that separates us from God.  It is a wall that is built by me, but with eternal bricks that cannot be torn down by human hands or effort.  It is a wall that prevents me from having a relationship with God, and from ever getting to Heaven to live with Him.  The only one who has the power to tear that wall of eternal sin bricks down is Jesus, and He will only do it if we ask Him to.  That means getting to Heaven is our choice…we ask Jesus to forgive us of our sins, and save us from staying on this side of the wall, staying in sin.  He then becomes our Savior.

All sin must be punished.  Jesus took our punishment when He died on the cross over 2,000 years ago.  The punishment for sin is death, eternal death.  That means our bodies die, but our spirits either live for eternity in Heaven with God, or they live an eternal death in Hell separated from God and all His goodness.  When Jesus died, He took our punishment of eternity in Hell.  When He came back to life after 3 days, He demonstrated that the power over life and death are both in His hands, and He cannot be controlled by either.  We Christians say that He conquered death and Hell.  Even though we will all still die a physical death (that is a consequence of sin, as opposed to punishment for it), our spirits don’t die.  And if we ask Jesus to be our Savior, He will break down that ugly (because sin is ugly if we are honest) wall of sin, and welcome us into the presence of God.  If we die with that wall still standing between us and God, then all hope is lost.  The wall remains in the spirit world, just as it was here in the physical world, and there is no way past it to get near to God.  The difference is that in the physical world, God’s Spirit is present in every Christian, and all around us.  Every person experiences the goodness of God as He provides rain for crops to grow, sunshine, love, peace…all the good things we have just a glimpse of here.  In Hell, on the other side of that wall, ALL of His goodness is gone.  None of it remains.  There is only the antithesis of everything good.  No love at all, only hatred.  No peace, only torment.  No laughter, only tears.  All the time, eternally.  And in that spirit world of life after physical death, the wall of sin has also become eternal.  There is no hope of every breaking it down.

Conversely, for those people who asked Jesus for His salvation, and allowed Him to tear that wall down, their spirits get to live surrounded by all of God’s goodness, in purest form, no longer distorted by sin and its effects, for all of eternity.  Completely pure love.  Completely whole peace.  Completely full joy.  All the time, eternally.

My ugly sin was has been torn down.  Jesus is my Savior.  I still sin, because I will never be perfect until my spirit is living in Heaven with God.  But when Jesus tore down my sin wall, He also made it impossible for it to be rebuilt.  He took my punishment once and for all.  When I sin now, I ask for forgiveness and it is given.  There are still earthly consequences for sin.  If I lie to someone, I have still hurt them and damaged our trust.  But I have confidence that Jesus will forgive me, because He promised to, and I know that lie is not going to keep me from living in Heaven.

Now, there is a burning issue that needs to be addressed.  I may be a Christian who is an accidental hypocrite, but there are definitely people who claim to be Christians and are blatant hypocrites.  What about them?  First of all, I don’t know their hearts.  I cannot make the judgement as to whether or not they actually are Christians.  Only God knows that.  What I do know is that God calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves.  When people are standing on the side of a gay pride parade holding hateful placards, for example, that is not showing the love of God…and it is flaming hypocrisy.  It does not show love, it shows hatred.   The Bible says the world will know Christians by their love.  Hatred is a sin.  And I have just admitted that Christians still sin.  So how do we know what the truth is?  Are they actually Christians who are sinning and giving the rest of us a bad name?  If so, we must remember that we will never be perfect, and that God works in the heart of every Christian to make them more and more like Him.  Hopefully they will eventually recognize their sin, confess it and seek forgiveness.  However, it must also be recognized that these people may not really be Christians at all, but only think they are.  Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in the world who think they are Christians just because they go to church, or try to be a good person.  Jesus said that He is the only way to be saved.  Going to church won’t save, and no one can be good enough to save themselves.  If those people are relying on something other than Jesus, they are not truly Christians, and do not have the love of God in them.

In the end, it really doesn’t matter.  You will think what you will about me and all Christians.  You will either judge us on a case-by-case basis, or you will judge us as all the same whether you know us or not.  And I will continue to be a Christian, even with my imperfections.  But I am, and always will be, a Christian who knows without a doubt that when I die, my spirit will live with God forever, with a pile of bricks from a torn down wall far behind me.  What about you?  Will you ask Jesus to tear down your wall and be your Savior?  Or will you live eternally on the side of a wall that you can never tear down?  It’s up to you.

 

Satan’s Bag of Tricks

When Satan approached Eve in the Garden of Eden, he deployed his full bag of tricks.  And aren’t we glad that we have written record of it?!  It’s like being given the secret attack plans, in writing, of our greatest enemy while on the field of battle.  Wait, it is exactly that.  Since we know all of Satan’s moves, we can watch for them and have our guard up.  Can you see him pacing the floor every time someone reads Genesis 3?  “Drat!  Foiled again!”  (Yah, right!  I’m sure he is that tame!  Not!!)

Well, let’s take a look at what is in Satan’s bag of tricks, shall we?  Let’s start with chapter 3,verse 1.  “Now the serpent….”  Satan has power to be reckoned with.  He changed his form into something that was non-threatening.  Just as the beautiful Autumn Crocus flower causes cardiac arrest, Satan can appear beautiful, but his poison is deadly.

Number 2 in the bag of tricks is also in verse 1.  Satan asks Eve, “Has God indeed said, ‘You shall not eat of every tree in the garden?'”  Did you see that?  He said “every.”  Just like my 8 year old insinuates that I don’t love him because I make him eat the healthy supper I have made for him, and don’t let him eat the junk food he would prefer.  Satan insinuates that God does not love Eve.  If He truly loved her, then He would let her eat from whatever tree she wanted to.  Tricky, tricky!  And how easily we tend to fall for that one!  The minute something goes wrong, or doesn’t go like we planned, what do we do?  We doubt the love of God.  And what is more true than His love?  Not a blessed thing!  Anyone who would sacrifice the life of His only Son for you, loves you.  That is pretty hard to overlook.

Trick number 3 – Genesis 3:4.  Satan flat out lies.  He denies the truth of God’s word when he says, “You will not surely die.”  Just a case in point…where is Eve now?  Dead.  Satan does not always twist to deceive.  He does not always manipulate the truth so that it is still partially true.  Often he just plain old, flat out lies.  He is, after all, the father of lies (John 8:44).  Be on your guard.  Know God’s word so that you know His truth, and will see a lie from Satan from miles away.

Remember the poisonous apple from The Sleeping Beauty?  Oh I remember it!  The apple the witch offered to the princess was beautiful!  It was red and shiny, perfectly formed.  It easily must have been the most desirable apple from all the trees…but it was laced with poison!  As the wicked witch (disguised as a sweet old lady…sound familiar?) held it out before her, the princess could not resist.  Perhaps she wasn’t even hungry before that.  But when she say that gorgeous apple, she wanted it.  She took it, and ate it.  Satan’s 4th trick is just that.  Chapter 3:5 – “…in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God…”  A fruit that would make Eve like God.  “Oooo, pretty!  I must have it!!”  Satan causes sin to appear beautiful, fun, desirable, then dangles it in front of our faces.  We begin to believe that it is exactly what we have always wanted to do, so we do it.  We say it, we take it, we whatever.  Know what God says is sin.  Stay in constant contact with the Holy Spirit through prayer, so that you will hear Him when He warns you that the shiny, red apple is poisoned!

Here’s a sneaky one.  Watch carefully for trick number 5, because Satan very craftily uses it to malign the character, and holiness of God…thereby removing His godliness!  Genesis 3:5 – “For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”  Key words?  “For God knows.”  Can you hear the snide snake hiss those words out?  His implication?   “God knows if you eat this, you will be just like Him, and He can’t have that.  He wants all the knowledge to be His.  He wants all the power for Himself.  He is selfish and jealous, and won’t share.”  Satan led Eve to question the goodness, the holiness, of God.  In a world filled with tragedy and strife, how easy is it for Satan today to plant these same seeds of doubt!  See Leviticus 19:2, Isaiah 6:3, 1 Peter 1:5, Revelation 3:7, and Revelation 15:4 for verification of God’s holiness.

When in a battle, know your enemy.  But also know your ally.  Remember that you are on the side of right, and God fights for you against an enemy who’s defeat is imminent.  Don’t let Satan’s wiles trick you into crossing enemy lines.  Be on guard!  Wear your armor!  Ephesians 6:11 – Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

So What is God’s Story, Really? Pt. 1

A while back we were talking about creation and the fall into sin in our adult Sunday School class.  During the discussion, one woman spoke up and said something that stuck with me…”God set us up.”  Heh?  Come again?  Oh, she wasn’t saying it with any kind of malicious attitude or anything.  She was just saying that, by putting the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden, it appeared that God was setting mankind up for a fall.  He put the tree there, knowing it would be a temptation to eat from it.

Did God really set us up for a fall?  Did He put that tree there as a test to see if we could pass it up?  How fair is that?  That just goes against the unspoken rules of decency.  Everyone knows it just isn’t right to set someone up just so that they will fail.  It’s plain old cruel.

So does that make God cruel?  Can’t be.  He is love.  He is just.  And He is truth.  Those things alone do not add up to cruel.  Since God is not cruel, then we must ask the question:  Did God really set us up for a fall?  The answer is yes and no.

We know from the Bible that God is all-knowing.  Romans 11:33-36 (ESV) – Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways! “For who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?” “Or who has given a gift to him that he might be repaid?” For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen.

Since God is all-knowing, then, yes, He knew when He put that tree in the garden that Adam and Eve would eat from it.  But we need to back up further.  God knew before He created the world and everything in it that when He created the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and put it in the Garden of Eden, and made Adam and Eve, and told them not to eat of it, that Satan would tempt Eve, she would eat, and give to Adam, who would also eat.  God knew before He created any of it, that man would need a savior, that He would have to provide that sacrificial Lamb, in the form of His own Son, and that, even after sending Jesus to die in place of the sinful humans He created, that many, many would reject Him, hate Him, and chose to live as His enemies.  Why in the world did God bother??

In the words of my 10-year-old son, “Why didn’t God just click something and make everyone love Him?”  I believe that in that question lies the answer.  Why in the world did God bother with creating a world that would reject Him?  Why didn’t He just make us follow Him and love Him?  Because that is not what He wanted, or wants!  Even from the very beginning…before the beginning of the world, God wanted to have a relationship with us, His creation.  But He didn’t want a forced relationship.  God knew that forcing people to love Him would only lead to a false love.  It wouldn’t be real.  Even if it prevented sin from entering the world, and the forced love did not lead to bitterness and resentment.  It would still be a hollow love.  Love without meaning.  That is not what God wants.  He wants a love that brings with it deep devotion, abiding love that lasts for eternity, and is willing to give to Him everything that we have, because He has given to us everything we have.

This kind of love cannot be created or forced.  The love that God wants from you and me is a love that chooses Him.  When we give Him that kind of love, when we make a conscious decision to love God, He, in turn, promises us the reward of living in eternity with Him.

Now I want to put this in a very large nutshell for you.  Picture this:  God’s real story, a book from beginning to end.  God wanted a people with whom He could have a true relationship, based on a love that was chosen, not forced.  Knowing this, He set about creating a world for people to live in.  He placed a temptation before the people, knowing that they would choose to take it, and separate themselves from Him.  He already had a plan to restore that relationship once the ball was rolling.  It was a plan that was going to take a lot of time, and cost Him a lot of pain in a very personal way.  But He knew that, along the way, there would be those who would choose to love Him.  He planned to let the whole scenario play out as long as possible.  He loved each person that He created and put into the story of the world, even before they were created, and He desired to give each and every one of them the opportunity to love Him.  Eventually, He will close the book on this world, this place that He has built to cultivate people who will love Him and live with Him for eternity.  This earth was never intended to be a forever place.  It was always a time and a place on the way to eternity.  The middle step in God’s plan to create a family who could be with Him, and love Him, and talk with Him, and whom He could love and care for for all of eternity.

For those of us who are Christians, followers of Jesus, people who have chosen to love God, this is cause to praise and rejoice.  If you are reading this, and you have not made that conscious decision to love God, you still can.  God is going to close the back cover to this book very soon.  Most of the story has been written.  The final chapters are being playing out in our lifetimes.  Won’t you chose the God who went through all this trouble, sacrificed His only Son, and has waited so patiently for thousands of years so that you can share in His glory?  He loves you so much.  Chose to love Him.

“God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life.”  John 3:16.