IT’S PERSONAL

IT’S PERSONAL

Have you ever had your feelings hurt? In a good many small-town churches like ours it is not unusual to enter the building, look for that ‘perfect’ seat, the one that allows you to appear to be there while still providing a sense of quick escape if needed, and just as you start to sit down a church member who was likely there when the building was built in 1908 says, “That’s my seat.” They didn’t mean to do it, but even something that minor, to a visitor who is trying to blend in and feel welcome, can be offensive.

Or maybe, you were there for the sermon on proper Christian attire. This is especially applicable to women somehow. It seems that women can wear improper clothing but men can’t. Anyway, were you there for that sermon, the one in which women were told not to wear pants? And you sat there in that church pew in the nicest pair of pants you had in your closet, or maybe the only pair fit to wear in public, and were overcome with embarrassment believing that everyone turned to look right at you.

Could it be that you were embarrassed by your parents? They claimed to be great Christians, and maybe they were, but they kept you from going to a school dance and humiliated you in front of your friends. At a time in your life when friendships and peer groups were more important that air. Your parents kept you home because their “religion” said good children don’t go to heathen dances.

Are you my age? Do you remember being told you had the wrong hair style? You weren’t allowed to be cool and have long hair because only the devil had long hair. I remember church doors with signs posted on them that told visitors long hair on men was not allowed and not welcome in their church. Did they really expect me to go to the barber shop before getting saved? Things like this hurt. They can hurt very deeply.

But these are not the only things that can hurt. The pain can go much deeper when it is caused by the hypocrisy of someone we know closely, are personally related to or maybe even instructed or taught by. Have you ever had a friend, a close friend, you believed you knew well suddenly show a willingness to violate the law? When money or prestige were offered, were you shocked to see them throw their Christianity out the window? And even worse, did you have to listen to them come up with some feeble explanation for why it was justified in their case? A parent is a prime example. An authority figure, one who taught us how to be the person we ought to be. They should have been an example to us. So, when they fall, especially to hypocrisy it hurts us deeply. And look at the number of pastors in this country who let down congregation after congregation. They run off with the secretary. They embezzle church funds. They teach sobriety and live lives of drunkenness. They are hypocrites. Or even worse, have you witnessed the abuse of a loved one at the hands of a “Christian”? 

How can anyone expect you to turn to God, to accept Christ as your Savior, how do they have the audacity to tell you to live a godly life when their lives, the life you see them live every day, is so hypocritical? 

                But wait! Don’t you see the error in rationality? My standing before God is not contingent upon your standing before God. Everybody has been hurt by somebody. Some have been hurt more deeply than others, but all have been hurt. This is one of the reasons God calls for each of us to come to Him through Christ Jesus, Isaiah 53:4  “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.” All of the sins and hypocrisy that you see around you originated in the heart of someone just like you, someone deeply in need of a right relationship with God. Jesus offers to carry all our hurts and burdens for us. He never meant for you to carry them alone.

                Yes, there are hypocrites in this world. Do you really believe that one day you will be allowed to stand before God and declare, as your defense for rejecting salvation through Christ, that someone hurt your feeling or offended you? No one will stand before God and hear him ask, “who kept you from believing in me?” We all come to God through difficult circumstances. And in every case Jesus bears our burden, pays the price for our sin and he places us in right standing before God.

                Don’t allow the sin and hypocrisy of others to keep you from God. You noticed the sin in others, that’s good. You could see their actions were wrong so, you can see that many of your actions and thoughts are wrong as well. And one day God will judge your life and not in comparison to others. It will be just you and God on the day of judgment.

                It’s personal.

Please read:  http://christxalted.blogspot.com/2016/01/how-to-be-born-again.html