Recently I received an email from a man who felt he had to pretend to be a Christian in church. Had he accepted Christ as his savior? Yes. Did he pray and study the Word? Yes. Did he try to live by that Word? Yes. But still he felt like a fake. He had to pretend to be something he wasn’t everytime he stepped into the church.
I think its high time we realize what real Christians are.
First, we’re dirty. We wouldn’t need Jesus if we were already clean. See, real Christians need a real Savior. Without Jesus, we drown in messes of our own creation. Paul wrote, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15) and “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do” (Romans 7:19). Real Christians really need Jesus. As Paul wrote, “We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6) Christians must stive to ” consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus” (Romans 6:11).
Next I’ll share a secret, sometimes we Christians speak when we should be silent. I remember an email conversation once where a young woman asked for prayer during a faith crisis. She wanted fellow Christians to pray that she would grow closer to the Lord and grow in understanding. Her sig line indicated she was Mormon. The first response she got was a rant against the Mormon church, telling her that it and she would go to hell. Real Christians do that kind of thing. We Christians shoot off at the mouth all the time. James wrote, “And the tongue is a fire. The tongue is placed among our members as a world of iniquity; it stains the whole body, sets on fire the cycle of nature, and is itself set on fire by hell” (James 3:6) and “From the same mouth come blessing and cursing” (James 3:10). Of course, James also said, “My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so” James 3:6). James taught us that we can’t play church while knocking our neighbor, writing, “With it [the tongue] we bless the Lord and Father, and with it we curse those who are made in the likeness of God” (James 3:9).
Christians can make others feel unwelcome in church. I had been away from my home church for a few years–because I lived in another country–before returning. I got to church early enough that few people where there-just me, a friend and another couple. The couple approached me, and the husband “welcomed” me to “OUR” church. His indication was that I didn’t belong in “his” church. My friend immediately responded that I was a member of the church and had been far longer than he. About that time, the pastors came up, saying my name. The gentleman realized I was the “Jackie” at university he and the church had been praying for over the years. Of course, this doesn’t just happen today. Matthew 26:7-10, “a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment, and she poured it on his head as he sat at the table. But when the disciples saw it, they were angry and said, ‘Why this waste? For this ointment could have been sold for a large sum, and the money given to the poor.’ But Jesus, aware of this, said to them, ‘Why do you trouble the woman? She has performed a good service for me.’” Even the disciples tried to make some people feel unwelcome. Of course, “For God shows no partiality” (Romans 2:11). We have hope, however because Jesus prayed that we would be One just as He and the Father are One.
Christians argue and fuss. Its been happening for years, even in the New Testament. Paul records, “For it has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters” (1 Corinthians 1:11). (Shamless plug for a women of the Bible who was obviously also a leader.)
Sadly the Christians also condon sin when its convienent. We make exceptions. Deacon so and so can get by with adultery, but we lambast gays. Or we just say, as one nationally known pastor said, “the Bible was written over 2000 years ago, its not relevant today”, to make all sin ok. Again, we’re not the first, and based on Revelation we’re not the last. The Corinthians did the same thing. “It is actually reported that there is sexual immorality among you, and of a kind that is not found even among pagans; for a man is living with his father’s wife. And you are arrogant! Should you not rather have mourned, so that he who has done this would have been removed from among you?” (1 Corinthians 5:1-2).
You see, the bottomline is like James said, “For all of us make many mistakes” (James 3:2). I sin, I speak out of turn, I am unloving—I’ve done things far worse than the people in the stories I’ve shared….I am a real Christian who belongs with other real Christians in church. Only with those other flawed people who make those many mistakes will I ever have the possibility of growing. “There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift. Therefore it is said, ‘When he ascended on high he made captivity itself a captive; he gave gifts to his people.’ (When it says, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower parts of the earth? He who descended is the same one who ascended far above all the heavens, so that he might fill all things.) The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ” (Ephesians 4:4-12). See, only real people will really help me grow. If we’re all having to pretend to be good little Christians, none of us will ever get to BE good little Christians.
There is only one perfect person in church- Jesus. The rest of us are still working out our faith, we’re still struggling with the old creation and allure of sin. Which means the next time we want the “church” to change, to be less dirty and more spiritual, we need to ask the Lord to start with us. I guess if you or I admitted just how real we are, we could all stop feeling like “fake” Christians.