Rarely do I really let it rip on here, because I try and appear like I have it together and never get rattled.
Well, if anyone has seen the news lately, a certain university president has been behaving like a complete buffoon and has managed to drag a lot of good, kind, and sincere people down the public road to utter humiliation. He's been enabled and assisted by a boatload of greedy, self-serving sharks with nice clothes, pretty Bibles, and ice cold hearts.
Anyone watching people (who say they are Christians) lie, cheat, steal, and behave like drunken, entitled fools, tend to not listen whatsoever when those same wretches get all weepy in a year and say that God has healed and forgiven them, and you can too, oh and your money is safe with them. Or when those same people talk about how importance Jesus is to them? Yeah no, I don't want "that" Jesus.
The thing is, when someone is good, and kind, and acts like Jesus, but occasionally messes up, yet their contrition is real, then forgiveness is usually easy.
But when someone like, let's use Jerry Falwell Junior for example, when someone like him actually posts incredibly compromising photos on his own social media account (on a yacht, pants unzipped, his arm around a young woman whose pants are also unzipped) then deletes it and says "it was all in good fun", all the while running a university where even the slightest infraction can result in monetary punishment, academic probation, or dismissal?? That just REEKS of entitlement and hypocrisy.
How ANYONE can defend this kind of behaviour is beyond me.
Someone I follow on Twitter, a man named Benjamin Young, had this to say : "One of the hard truths many Christians are unwilling to admit is that truth is truth and fruit is fruit. Whoever speaks truth and has good fruit is worth listening to...and many Christians aren’t."
(You read more about him at https://guardthegift.com.
That's the basic equation, isn't it? To persuade people to hear what we have to say, we have to be worth listening to. Our lives have to reflect our words, and God's Word.
No one cares to hear a known liar preach. No one wants to be told how to behave by someone who is yelling from a pulpit. If anyone tells you that God only accepts people who keep a certain set of rules? Run.
And if preachers or politicians tell you that your eternal soul is compromised by who you cast your vote for? They are LYING! They are fear-mongering, and they are awful!
If you have questions about faith and about the Bible, ask me. I'll do my best to point you towards people who can help you.
But to start with, I highly recommend Beth Moore. Her work is deep, Biblical, and relatable.
You can read more about her work at www.lproof.org.
Sometimes, when we can't see the forest for the trees, things get hard and painful and it's easy to toss the tough processes out the window. This season of COVID has brought so much garbage to the surface, but it's made some things abundantly clear.
On that note, I'll end with Philippians 4:8 (NIV).
"Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable--if anything is excellent or praiseworthy--think about such things."