The Pretenders

I was on facebook the other day (of course!) and saw that one of my friends wrote a status about how she hates it when people who claim to be Christians do unChristian things like cursing, taking the Lord's name in vain, stealing, lying, cheating, etc. You get my point. And at first I was like, "Yeah, you go girl! Call 'em out on it!" But then I thought about it for a little while (stupid brain!) and realized that doing drugs and smoking weed behind the school aren't the only sins that makes you "unChristian."

Believing in Jesus isn't the only trait that "proves" you are a Christian. Any common sinner can do that. Even demons believe in Jesus (James 2:19). Just because you've been to church once or twice, that doesn't make you a worshipper. As G.K. Chesterton put it, "Just going to church doesn't make you a Christian anymore than standing in your garage makes you a car."

I'm going to take it one step further: guess what? there is no perfect Christian!

But does that make us all pretenders of the faith? If no one is perfect, if we don't follow the Ten Commandments or obey God's will without question, does that make us "unChristian" also? We go through life pretending to understand the Bible and pretending to be good, but is that enough?

There are a lot of people out there that think just because they are mostly good people that they will go to heaven. This is simply not true. You can't be wholly good enough to see the face of God without accepting Jesus' shed blood to cleanse your sins. Now, you might say that you don't have any sins. But have you ever lied? Or stolen? Or cheated?

The Ten Commandments say do not steal or lie or cheat or take the Lord's name in vain. Doing these things is just as bad as murdering in God's eyes. So are you a good person. I'd say no. There isn't a single one of us good enough to go to heaven.

So we have established that there aren't any "good" people in the world. We all sin, we are all sinners, we are all doomed to go to hell.

Unless . . .

What if this God that supposedly loves us so much made a way for us to be good enough, with a little help, of course? What if this God, that loves us so much, sent His Son, His only Child, to die for us? What if His perfect, flawless, Son was sent to die for cruel, unmoral, judging, murdering, comfort zone seeking humans?

What if there is no what if?

John 3:16 says, "For God so loved the world that He sent His only begotten Son, that whomever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him."

And we don't have to be pretenders anymore.