1/22/07
excuse me for saying this on something as distancing as xanga. it may be a result of my own cowardice. anyway, afterwards, you may feel free to blast me. i know i've been wrong. i want to change. but it will be useless if you don't change, too. because my problem is your problem. just as your problem is mine.
we have GOT to stop putting a pretty face on it.
so listen up.
sexual immorality. impurity. debauchery. idolatry. witchcraft. hatred. discord. jealousy. fits of rage. selfish ambition. dissension. factions. envy. drunkenness. orgies. gossip. malice. slander.
see, we're supposed to be the arms and legs and livers of this Body of Christ. but this is not going to work out if we don't make a change.
our self-righteous generation is so quick to criticize others, including our own leadership. how eager we (i) are (am) to spear our elders for their conservatism and rigidness. yes, it's true, in some cases we have been wronged. i see it too, i feel it too, in the walls and aisles of the church, the pharisaical turnout, the whitewashed graves. but now we have made a scapegoat of our pastors and Sunday School teachers, and we're ready to burn our brothers and sisters at the stake. and yet we fail to see that we, too, are rotting this Body from the inside out.
we're taking the mercy that was bought with blood, and we're using it to excuse our sharp tongues and our saturday-night distractions. we lose ourselves in drunkenness, in dirty language, and in cruelty thinly disguised as wit. all for a laugh. all so we can act out someone else's idea of the good life.
this. is. not. life. this is death. didn't we get out of it? what insane living person would spend his time acting like he's dead?
of course we are going to continue to struggle. and we need to be honest about that. but somehow we've started to celebrate this lifestyle as if our vices and our sins define who we are. we've begun to believe that we can't and shouldn't change.
we expect disagreeing believers to look the other way. and then we try, stupidly, to extract what we do from the reality of Christ. don't tell me how to live. this is between me and God.
everybody is looking at us, whether you like it or not. and don't think that we won't be held responsible for the ones we have confused and turned away by our hypocrisy. don't think we won't have to face up to how horrifically we've mutilated the gospel of grace.
we, the church, have all the words and references, we pray the formula-perfect prayers, but we try to squash the reality of our calling. holiness becomes theoretical. even simple kindness is a rarity. if a believer struggles with sin, and wants to defeat it, she will get no help from us. we tell her to "lighten up, it's not as bad as you think. and did you hear what ____ said/did/wore the other day? what a weirdo."
of COURSE i'm a hypocrite. of course this applies to me, maybe most of all. but that doesn't mean that i don't know what i'm talking about.