Hypocrisy and Our Message

Two-faced. Not authentic. Pretending. Fake. What do these words have in common? All of these words can be summed up in one word: hypocrisy.

Recently, I've come across a few statements from unbelievers pertaining to their views on believers. The first few similar comments I didn't think much of, but when many of these unbelievers had the same idea, that really made me think about what they had to say. I have seen several times unbelievers calling Christians hypocrites. My initial reaction was to think, they just don't understand. They just don't want to believe they are sinners. They just want to cut Christians down. But think again, Kristin. Maybe there is truth to what they say.

A hypocrite is someone who claims to possess beliefs or principals, but doesn't really. Mary Kassian, in her book Girls Gone Wise, says "a hypocrite is a person who deliberately and habitually professes to be good when she is aware she is not." A hypocrite is someone who makes a claim to something and then goes and does the opposite. Acting in contradiction to what you say you believe. Get the idea? Maybe we think that these people have no

idea what they are saying, but let's evaluate some more.

In the Bible, there are a group of people called Pharisees. Matthew 23:27-28 says, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like white-washed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness." In Jesus's day, the Pharisees were a group of people who told others to keep the law, and therefore, looked as though they were godly people who had it together spiritually. But in actuality, the Pharisees were proud, arrogant, hypocrites who told others what to do but didn't live it themselves. Quite obviously, from this passage in Matthew, Jesus doesn't speak to highly of hypocrisy.

Now let's apply it to now-a-days. There once was a saved girl who had been raised and had grown up in a Christian home all her life. She was a girl that most people would describe as "a good, little church girl." She did what she was told, she prayed with and for others, she encouraged others to do what was right, and many people looked up to her. But how she acted around her family and church family was different than how she acted with her friends and out in the world. She told others that we ought to love others to show God's love, but in her life she constantly put others down and gossiped frequently. She told others that we shouldn't conform to this world, but her media choices consist of things that were less than God-honoring. She told others to pray and read the Bible, but rarely did she pick up her own Bible.

As true Christians, do we ever do this? I'm aware that many people in the world carry around the label of "Christian" but are not genuinely born again. But I'm talking about us as true believers. Do we tell the world that Christians love and follow Jesus when our lives are showing us as no different from the world? Are we telling others that we are different while we are living a life that isn't glorifying God? Do we want people to think we are good and spiritually together and then be able to go and do whatever we want? I know in my personal life, I am a hypocrite a lot of the time. I tell the girls in my Bible study to love and forgive, and then I go treat my younger siblings like dirt. I tell my girls that they need to be having devotions to grow spiritually, and then I go skip mine five nights in a row. I realize that I won't ever be perfect, but does my life generally match the beliefs I claim to have? I can go as far as judging and condemning unbelievers and then doing exactly what I told them not to do!

This is something I think we really need to think about! This really concerns me! If we, as Christians, are going out and preaching a message, then we need to be living it out! If we are being hypocrites in what we do, than why would that draw people to Christ? What glory does God get in people having a pretend love for Him? What kind of message is this going to give the world? I'm mainly talking to myself right now, but I know that all Christians need to take this to heart. I think that we really need to be thinking about this. Are our lives showing what we claim to believe? Are we showing the world that there is a Savior, and that this Savior can change lives?