Thank you!!!…

First, I don’t think anyone would honestly choose that they are going to be hypocritical and call themselves Christians but not actually live out the Christian life. I think it sneaks up on people without them realizing it:

11 I have seen something else under the sun:
The race is not to the swift
or the battle to the strong,
nor does food come to the wise
or wealth to the brilliant
or favor to the learned;
but time and chance happen to them all.
12 Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come:
As fish are caught in a cruel net,
or birds are taken in a snare,
so men are trapped by evil times
that fall unexpectedly upon them. — Ecclesiastes 9:11-12

A lot of this problem has to do with relationships in the church. As Grant said, most people in church are just wanting to protect their image. Every Sunday in church, people will ask you, “Hey, How are you?” but you know they are just asking to be polite. Most of the time they don’t really want to hear the answer. So even if your life is currently going pretty horrible, chances are you will answer with “I’m good”. We are so worried about what others will think and we don’t trust that others actually want to hear about our lives that we don’t answer truthfully.

We also tend to lie to ourselves. Sometimes it’s not intentional - we get so busy with “life” and going from one activity to the next, we don’t make time for God, to read His Word or to hear what He has to say to us, and don’t stop to search our own hearts for the truth to make sure our priorities are straight. Also, even if we do see a problem with our life, we “look at our face in the mirror and then walk away and forget what we looked like”. We might have seen the problem and know that it exists, but we simply ignore it because it’s a lot easier to ignore problems and hope they go away then to actually confront the problem head on and deal with it.

So how do we keep things from sneaking up on us and making sure that we are on the right path? The only way to do that is to continually rely on God and spend time with Him. God also puts Christian brothers and sisters in our lives that we can rely on and they can help make sure we are on the right path. As Grant pointed out, we should surround ourselves with a great support group to be there for us when times are tough and to enjoy the good times with us. However, to do this effectively, we have to take time to build true friendships with people so that they know us well enough to be there for us. This is scary to a lot of people. Building an intimate relationship such as this is hard. It requires effort, you might get hurt, you might have to confront someone, it takes time, and it takes a lot of love. Most of us even cringe when we hear the word “intimate”. In our culture today, you have to be careful how you use that word or else someone might think something bad about you. However, Jesus calls us to “intimate relationships” with Him first and also with our brothers and sisters in Christ. He made us intimate beings to desire friendships and relationships for a reason. I think that most of the time, we don’t build the type of relationships with other people that Christ wants us to. We come up with some excuses, and we just don’t put forward the effort.

13 Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. 14 But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it. — Matthew 7:13-14

God did not say that the Christian life would be easy, and it’s not. Life is hard and following the narrow path is even harder. I pray that during my life I will continue to follow Him and strive after Him. I pray that I would build up relationships in life that would help me and better me but that do not compromise the Word of God. I pray also that God would use me to minister to others and to be friends with them in a way that helps them to draw closer to God and would bring glory to Him.

Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” — Matthew 16:24

“Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like”

They have no problem impressing their fellow Christians on Sunday, but are just as dedicated to protecting their “image” to impress the world. I don’t mean to condemn the world (it isn’t all bad). Just remember Christ is where it counts in the end.

Another quote caught my attention that should be interpretted very carefully:

“God hunted me down and brought me back into a friendship with Himself. He changed my life completely.”

Don’t always believe God is going to come to your aid automatically. If that were the case, we’d all be heaven-bound which sadly isn’t the case. Those who surround themselves with a great support group and a put forth a commendable effort to develop a relationship with Him will be the ones who receive the spiritual uplifting in their time of need along with those God chooses to bless by revealing direction pertaining to his plans for them. Proverbs 13:4 “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.”

Besides that, this material really shouldn’t be all that suprising to us. It takes effort as Ben’s told the guys at Tracks. Often times we know what to do, we just need to follow through with effort and a pure heart. There’s my campaign pitch for your volunteer recruitment Ben. God Bless

Isaiah 40:31

We know what it means to be a Christian; we act like Christians; we talk and socialize like Christians. But how well do we know and imitate Christ?

My heart’s been broken over this recently — how there’s a difference between being a Christian and imitating Christ these days. Clearly that was never the intent, but the church is poisoned by this distinction (and, more, how it’s slipped by unnoticed). I’d love more than anything to wipe it out, but that’s beyond me.

Someone with so much influence and authority should be very mindful of what they say. I HOPE that he put as much thought into these statements as he did passion… but i guess it is apparent that he did not. It is very unfortunate that he is so mis-guided…