Tuesday, February 24, 2009

ANOTHER WORD FOR HYPOCRITE -- Devotional for February 24, from "Good Seeds"

We have heard of your LOVE for all of God's people. (Col 1:4)

“And they’ll know we are Christians by our love…” Oh if that were only true of me and you! Christians reveal their identity all too often by far less noble characteristics. Let me dare to name a few: skillfully picking apart someone else’s theology, a holier-than-thou attitude, condemning those who disagree, arguing over fine points that divide while ignoring key ideas that unify, legalistic nitpicking, criticizing differing worship styles, tongue-wagging gossip about fellow believers, tongue-clicking condemnation of unbelievers…Need I go on? Jesus made his own list in Matthew 23. Too bad when Pharisee – or Christian – can be just another word for hypocrite! And what a dreadful thing this is when LOVE is one of the components, along with FAITH and HOPE, of the Christian’s job description. Sadly, as the apostle so deftly states in I Corinthians 13, Christians can be experts in Faith and professionals in Hope, but totally incompetent and unengaged when it comes to Love! The shortest and probably the best of all the books written by Francis Shaffer is entitled, The Mark of a Christian. You can read it in an afternoon, but you couldn’t learn it in a lifetime. Why? Because the “mark” is none other than the quality of love that distinguished Jesus from the rest of mankind, and would do the same for His followers, if we ever actually began to achieve it. In the Boxer Rebellion in China Christians were being sought out and killed. They fled the persecution, of course, but no amount of hiding could conceal their true identity, for their love for God and man, and especially one another, was written all over their faces, and spelled out in their every word and deed. The distinguishing details of true Christian love are listed for us in the Love Chapter, but in this tiny verse in Colossians the single most important nuance of Christian love is made even more clear: True Christian love is the love between Christians. The book of Acts records the formation of the early church, but not once is the word love used in its pages! It took one of its pastors, John, the Apostle of Love, to take us beyond the history and government to the heart and soul of the church – and he didn’t pull any punches! “If you say, ‘I love God,’ and hate your brother, you are a liar!” (I John 4:20). You might love the Bible, the unsaved, even your enemies –- all commendable things -– but if you don’t love God’s people, God knows you still don’t really love Him (and the world knows it, too!) Do you know anyone who knows you are a Christian primarily because of your love for Christians? That’s the final test.

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