Today a friend posted a picture of a billboard that is calling out homosexuals saying it is an abomination as well as saying abortion is murder. These are two highly controversial topics even among the Christian community and I am not about to give my opinion or debate the topic. What I am saying is simply that many Christians are setting a bad example of what we stand for and what the church is really suppose to look like. There were several comments from various people most all of whom I do not know. Here is one that stuck our the most
“…the Bible is a book full of rules that other people should live by.”
I do not claim to have all the answers but condemning people is not what we are called to do. Yes we are suppose to tell the world who Jesus is but that is not how he has taught us to go about it. In John 3:17 it says”For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” There are so many of us who will go to church on Sunday and play the part of being a Christian and then walk out the doors get into our cars and drive away leaving every bit of that life behind us until next week when we walk back through those doors. I am guilty of this myself from time to time. When I listen to what people say and take a look at how I live my life I realize the example that I am setting and the image I am giving the church by how I act and how I treat others. If we take a honest look at our lives and evaluate them would we really agree that we are living like we are Christians? Would we be able to tell a difference from somebody who doesn’t claim that Jesus is Lord of their life.
Once we have stepped back and looked at how we live our day to day lives when we aren’t worried about sitting in that pew on Sunday it’s no wonder so many people have a bad connotation associated with the church and anything to do with it. We have said “oh you can’t do that it’s a sin” but turn around and do something else that is just as much a sin. We have taken the parts of the Bible that suit us and will follow them but the ones that make things a little inconvenient we simply ignore causing so many lost people view us as hypocrites and want noting to do with Christianity. As the comment about puts it so well, people think its nothing more than a bunch of rules that we are made to follow and take all the fun out of life.
In the end the biggest question is “WHERE IS THE LOVE”. Where is the love for the broken and the lost. Do you remember where you were before Jesus reached into the muck you had made your life into and pulled you out? Do you remember the desperation you had knowing there was something missing in life but not knowing quite what it was? Jesus had compassion for the sinners. He didn’t go around telling them they were an abomination or going to hell, he told them that there was a way to heaven if they would just believe. When people are getting the wrong impression of what Christianity is maybe we need to stop, take a step back, and see what sort of example we are really setting for the people in our lives and even the ones we just bump into on the streets.
