Hypocrisy Has No Religious Preference

We are all human. God made each of us. "Red and yellow, black and white," tall, short, heavy, thin, beautiful by the world's standard or not, toothless or veneered, saggy or plastic, pale or tan, hyper or mellow, bubbly or shy, 3rd-world or living in the Land of Plenty, connected.com or technology-void... God made us all. He loves us all. Religions (and denominations, in particular) were not necessarily created, but somewhat structured by man in an attempt to set himself apart based on what he believes about God. I think that's good, in some ways. And they can't all be "right" about everything. What's really important, though? I believe Jesus is God's son, and that He died on the cross to save me from my sins, then came back to life on earth and walked around and people saw him. And I want to live my life the way He wants me to. All that other small stufF? Phft.

I do believe there are "religious" people headed for Hell, and I wouldn't leave that out when talking to someone about my Lord, but that's not my motivating tactic. I like to love people. Christians should seem different to the world. But there are so many things that happen nowadays that outsiders are able to point the finger and say, "See? You're no different." And I want to cry out and say to all Christians, "BE different." But to everyone else, I want to cry out and say, "Cut us some slack; we're still only human, and sinners like everyone else!" It's really, really hard to live a life sold-out and surrendered to the Lord and to give up earthly, fleshly desires in turn for what He wants out of us. It's not our nature. It's why we HAVE to spend time in the Bible and in prayer to stay in that mindset. I feel like the struggle with the Christian life is intimacy with God - if we all had that, the other stuff is just easy.

Today, I sadly read about the father of one of my students who was caught with marijuana. He's a religious leader in our community. Thankfully, she has graduated, so I'm hoping she can go to college and leave this behind her, but how embarrassing for her and their family. And the comments on the online site... people are outraged! They're outraged at the hypocrisy of a man who is such a "distinguished" leader and businessman in our community and has so many ties to so many different people and groups, and who has served as a chaplain with the police department. I'm concerned about the hatred people are expressing toward him, and while some people remember that he has a family, my fear is that others will not remember that. I hope there is no retribution for what he has done that will fall on his family, but the sad truth is - what we do affects our loved ones. We cannot expect our sins to only hurt ourselves. The worst thing about it is that it falls like a fringed blanket on those closest to us, and they bear the worst of it.

By the way, for anyone wondering about the title of this post - the man I'm reading about is muslim. (Is that different from what you were thinking?) When hypocrisy is confined to one particular group only, it's easy to make a judgement. But it appears, more and more every day, that hypocrisy has no religious preference, and that many people just really are not who they say they are. What is religion, really? I'd rather just claim Jesus, because so many "religious" people give religion and church in general a bad name.

But - all that said, I LOVE my church, and I am excited that tomorrow is Sunday, and I can't wait to go worship my Lord with other believers. I will pray for my student, for the pain in her heart, and for their family - however God lays it on my heart to pray for them. And today, I will try - again - to somehow BE different...