Real Christianity

It's hard to be honest about ourselves. It's even harder to be honest about ourselves with other people. We feel like we need to wear some kind of mask to cover up the not so nice things about us. But when we have someone in our lives that we can be totally transparent, it can be so freeing.

I'm that kind of person. I don't want to or even feel the need to be open and out there for all to see. My sister is about the only person I can be truly transparent with. I can tell her anything and she won't judge me. I can be honest about my struggles and she won't try to fix me. She gets me. I like the fact that we can be zaney and weird and sometimes a bit edgy with each other and no one gets offended. It's great to have hat in my life. But with other people, I'm not that way. I wish I was but I'm not. I understand the freedom in it but I just can't. Other people might judge me or try to fix me. Other people are better than me or nicer or don't struggle with he same stuff I do.

But I know that's not true. Just because we are followers of Christ doesn't mean we're automatically perfect, or that we don't still struggle with all the same sins. News flash: We are ALL sinners saved by grace. For all have sinned and fallen short. For all are like sheep gone astray. Praying a little prayer and getting dunked under water doesn't make you sinless. That's what make God so great. He saw us when we were lost and sinful and made a way for us not to be instantly perfect, but to have a relationship with Him and that He might mold us into the kind of people we were meant o be.

It's hard to own up to the fact that we are fallen and flawed. We think that somehow if we put on a smile and a cheerful disposition we can fool those around us into thinking that we are pretty good and close to perfect. It is our sinful nature to do so. It's what has always come naturally ever since the time of Adam and Eve. When they screwed up they didn't go find God and tell Him, they put on some leaves and hid from Him. When God asked them where they were, Adam answered with a cover story. "I heard you, I was afraid so I hid because I was naked." That wasn't really why Adam and Eve hid. They hid because they had sinned and couldn't face God. But they didn't admit right off the bat. Even when God asked Adam if he had eaten from the tree, Adam still tried to make himself look good. He pointed at Eve- "The woman YOU gave me gave me the fruit so I ate it." He isn't just blaming Eve here, he is also blaming God. The woman God gave him caused him to eat the food he wasn't supposed to eat. Adam was a new sinner but he still instinctively tried to cover his butt. Of course, Eve wasn't much better. She pointed the finger at the serpent that God had created. Again saying that it wasn't her fault it was the serpent's fault for deceiving her and God's fault for creating the serpent. We read the story so many times in the Bible and we see the feebleness in their cover up and defense. It would be laughable if it weren't so common to us. We screw up and we try to cover it up, brush over it and make it smaller that it is. We do his because we don't want to have to see ourselves for what we are and we most certainly don't want others to see us for who we really are.

Covering over our sins is like frosting a cake. My mom always says that frosting covers a multitude of cake sins. If the cake cracks or falls apart it can usually be pieced back together with frosting. But not always. If the cake is in shambles, there is not amount of frosting that can make it work. No matter haw much frosting you use it is still a mess. It may be presentable, but cut into it and it falls apart. Our public face will always fall off. No matter how well we frost our issues over, they are still there and someone will see right through it.

We think that as Christians we have to be the perfect ones. we have to be the ones that don't have issues. Sure we go through stuff but we're basically good and problem free. If we struggle with something it's usually someone else's fault. "It's not my fault I have relationship problems. My dad was a bad father." or, "It's not my fault my kids aren't walking with the Lord. They are just rebellious." or "It's not my fault I slept with my boyfriend, We just got caught up in the moment." or the big one in Christian circles, "It's not my fault I thought that about her. She was wearing an immodest outfit." Sound familiar? "It's not my fault. It's the woman you gave me" "It's not my fault. It's that serpent you created". We try to make ourselves look as guiltless as possible.

But the world sees right through us. They are looking to us to set the example in our community as the moral standard. When we mess up they are looking to us to see how we handle it. Will we be humble and own up to our sins or will we be like everybody else and shrug it away? We usually end up trying to make clothes out of fig leaves and hide our sins away. When we are confronted about it, we try to make excuses for ourselves and point out the fact that we aren't the only ones screwing up around here! And then we wonder why non believers aren't wanting to be saved. Sure, God is greater than how well we muddle our witness job but do we really want to be the reason that people aren't believing in Jesus? It's our job to live a testimony to God. Our lives are a reflection of who He is. When people want to know about God they look to His followers-us. If we're acting like the rest of the world in our attitude towards sin, God isn't being glorified. in us.

 What would happen if we were honest and humble before he world? We think that if we were honest about our mistakes, it would turn the world off to God. But what if we admit to the choices we make? What if "it's not my fault....." would become "yeah, I made that choice"? What if we let God's grace cover us and have ha be enough?

You see the story in the garden has a beautiful ending. When Adam and Eve got done pointing fingers and when God had announced the consequences for their actions, God did something. He made them clothes out of a sheep's skin. It's not only the sacrifice of the sheep that points to Christ but also the fact that the sheep's skin covered Adam and Eve's shame of being naked. The coverings that they had made from the leaves were passable as clothing but they were't good enough. When the cold would come they wouldn't be warm enough. If the wind blew too hard, they wouldn't b strong enough. And sooner or later the leaves would wilt and shrivel up. But the garments that God provided we sturdy and long lasting and warm. They were far better than some old leaves. Yes, it came at a cost: An innocent life had to be given in order for them to be clothed. But they were covered.

Just like Jesus. Our shame of sin is covered by the sacrifice of Jesus. We are clothed by God's grace. We need to stop making coverings for our sins with our own fig leaves. We need to own up to our sin and point to God's grace. That is how god is glorified in us. It's not by how good we are but how great God is! We don't have to go around trying to look like not sinning comes naturally. All we have to do is say, "Yeah, I sinned. But God has forgiven me. He loves me anyway."

Shake us up, Lord!

Sleepers, Awake!

Christianity has been around for thousands of years. It has survived persecution, and reached into the lives of peoples of all kinds of different races, cultures and languages. Praise the Lord that His Word has not come back void!
What do you think of when you think of being a Christian? What does that look like to you? What does it mean to you to be a Christian? Every day, how do you live it out? I was raised in a Christian home. I'm very blessed in that way. I don't think that it really matters if you are raised in a home where God is worshiped or cursed so long as you follow Him. But I do feel blessed to have been raised by followers of Jesus. However, like so many kids that grew up Christian, I never got the idea of what it was all about. My faith in Jesus wasn't mine alone but my parents'. Everyone I knew was a Christian and so was I. I didn't understand what that really meant. Sure, I went to church, knew my Bible, and understood what I must do to be saved, but I had never enjoyed a relationship with God. One day when I was in high school, the Lord woke me up from the religious stupor I had fallen into. He opened my self-centered eyes to see His love and my puffed up heart to receive it. In my sleep, I had seen only what I was doing to be a good Christian, but in my waking, I knew that it was the holy Spirit that could change me.
That I was saved from an early age I have no doubt. I'm not saying I wasn't saved then. I believe I was saved all those years ago. But I fell into a sleeping state. It happens so often to us as Christians. We get comfortable in our own little Christian kingdoms and stop thinking about what we are doing. We go about our business. We go to church on Sundays, mid-week Bible study on Wednesdays and do our little ministries if we have time.It's like clockwork day in and day out. Then one day, we wake up and think, "Why am I here? What am I really doing? Who is God anyway? What does Christianity mean anyway?" At least I hope we do.
In the States, Christianity is comfortable. We aren't persecuted like those in other countries, we aren't usually cast out by our family for being Christians and while we may not be the most popular kids on the block, we're not shunned but our friends because of our beliefs. It's pretty easy being identified as a Christian. We are allowed o fellowship openly and pray in public. We are blessed and fortunate.
Or are we? Satan has two tactics up his sleeve to crush those who would follow Jesus. Either he makes our lives horrid and scary, or he turns the heat up slowly like frogs in a pot. The latter is true of the American Church, I'm not saying that God isn't sovereign in all this or that He will let His Church die a slow, apathetic death. God is God still. But we must stop acting like frogs in a pot. We aren't cold blooded reptiles! We are different than the world. We are free from all of that. God has set us apart to bring His name glory and all we're doing is our christian thing and going to church, doing our ministries and reading our Bibles and praying every day. We're losing our effectiveness. Just look at the culture's view of Christians. They ridicule us, make us look like Bible thumping wackos and call us hypocrites. Sad but true. We could write it off as "no servant being greater than his master" all we want but our culture has part of it right. We are a house divided. We are saying God is love but not practicing His love with each other. We spend so much time trying o be right hat we've lost our focus on what we're really here for: to bring God glory. What is more important: that your theology is the most correct, or that someone is saved? What did Jesus tell His followers when they were arguing over who was the greatest? If you want to be great in God's kingdom, be a servant of all. You see, it's not going to matter in the end who was the most correct in their view of God. It's going to matter what you did to serve Him. Knowledge is a good thing, but knowledge puffs up. When we think we know he most and understand our theology better than others, we start to look down on them. I know because I did it. I knew my Bible and I knew what the whole God thing was about. But in doing so, I put myself above them as if I were somehow better than them. It's not about what we know, it's about God. It always has been and always will be.
I want o clear the air right now. I don't have all the answers. What I know about God is only a very small part of what He truly is. I'm not the perfect Christian who thinks she has all the answers and I'm right and the rest of you are wrong. Not in the least. The intent of the blog is to promote unity. I want to speak out against the discord the the Church is living with. My intent is not to point out how smart I am but to point you to how great God is. For it is Him and Him alone who matters at the end of the day.
Shake us up, Lord!