The Lost World Sees Our Hypocrisy Better Than We See It….

The Lost World Sees Our Hypocrisy Better Than We See It…

I remember when I was a newly reborn Christian that God opened my eyes to why I had rejected Him…. The first thing that God showed me was my sin and rebellion….. My sin nature was staring me in the face when I opened the bible…. I knew that I couldn’t change on my own…. However I knew that I could trust Christ to change me…. It wasn’t until I read the bible that I understood that my rebellious sin nature was the sinful part of me that God had to change…. As The Lord Jesus Christ revealed more of Himself to me the more I knew that I had to surrender me over to Him….. When I looked at Jesus, everything in me that didn’t look like Him, was sinful…… That made it easy to forgive the people around me… But it made me see that they were in need of God’s forgiveness as much as me…. I didn’t need to impress them with how good of a Christian I was… I needed to show them and tell them about the Love and forgiveness of Jesus Christ……

The next thing that God showed me was that most the “Christians” that knew didn’t look like Christ to me….. They didn’t look like Christ before I met Jesus Christ and they still didn’t look like Jesus Christ after I was saved… It was a strange reaction in me that I loved them inspite of that…. One of the first people that I told about my salvation was a man that was a harsh and judgmental Christian…. I know that it probably didn’t go over well but I told him that it was because of the way He treated me that it took me so long to surrender to Christ…. I told him with tears in my eyes because I now loved him and I didn’t want to hurt him…. I just wanted this Christian to love Jesus and know Him the way I knew Him…. My heart was broken because if I had been driven away from Christ by hypocritical Christians I knew that a lot of other folks were not given a biblical view of Jesus Christ….. Lost folks are the most accurate judges of our lives next to God… It was very frustrating trying to tell people about Jesus Christ….. Whenever I tried they would always tell me about how some “Christian” had hurt them….

It is not as hard to talk to people about Jesus as it was early on… Now when I am surrendered to the love and Lordship of Jesus Christ, He does all of the convincing and heart changing in the people I am witnessing to…. All have to do is listen to them and let Christ love them through me…. The Power of Christ lives in me…. He will tell me what to say to reveal Himself in and through me…. The world needs the Love and forgiveness that Jesus provides…. They won’t see Christ if all they see is me….. Me without Christ is really messed up….. Me with Christ in me is a powerful weapon in the hand of Almighty God…

Colossians 1:3-22 We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, 5 which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News.
6 This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace.
7 You learned about the Good News from Epaphras, our beloved co-worker. He is Christ’s faithful servant, and he is helping us on your behalf.* 8 He has told us about the love for others that the Holy Spirit has given you.
9 So we have not stopped praying for you since we first heard about you. We ask God to give you complete knowledge of his will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. 10 Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better.
11 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy,* 12 always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to his people, who live in the light. 13 For he has rescued us from the kingdom of darkness and transferred us into the Kingdom of his dear Son, 14 who purchased our freedom* and forgave our sins.
Christ Is Supreme
15 Christ is the visible image of the invisible God.
He existed before anything was created and is supreme over all creation,*
16 for through him God created everything
in the heavenly realms and on earth.
He made the things we can see
and the things we can’t see—
such as thrones, kingdoms, rulers, and authorities in the unseen world.
Everything was created through him and for him.
17 He existed before anything else,
and he holds all creation together.
18 Christ is also the head of the church,
which is his body.
He is the beginning,
supreme over all who rise from the dead.*
So he is first in everything.
19 For God in all his fullness
was pleased to live in Christ,
20 and through him God reconciled
everything to himself.
He made peace with everything in heaven and on earth
by means of Christ’s blood on the cross.
21 This includes you who were once far away from God. You were his enemies, separated from him by your evil thoughts and actions. 22 Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body. As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.

Colossians 2:6-23 And now, just as you accepted Christ Jesus as your Lord, you must continue to follow him. 7 Let your roots grow down into him, and let your lives be built on him. Then your faith will grow strong in the truth you were taught, and you will overflow with thankfulness.
8 Don’t let anyone capture you with empty philosophies and high-sounding nonsense that come from human thinking and from the spiritual powers* of this world, rather than from Christ. 9 For in Christ lives all the fullness of God in a human body.* 10 So you also are complete through your union with Christ, who is the head over every ruler and authority.
11 When you came to Christ, you were “circumcised,” but not by a physical procedure. Christ performed a spiritual circumcision—the cutting away of your sinful nature.* 12 For you were buried with Christ when you were baptized. And with him you were raised to new life because you trusted the mighty power of God, who raised Christ from the dead.
13 You were dead because of your sins and because your sinful nature was not yet cut away. Then God made you alive with Christ, for he forgave all our sins. 14 He canceled the record of the charges against us and took it away by nailing it to the cross. 15 In this way, he disarmed* the spiritual rulers and authorities. He shamed them publicly by his victory over them on the cross.
16 So don’t let anyone condemn you for what you eat or drink, or for not celebrating certain holy days or new moon ceremonies or Sabbaths. 17 For these rules are only shadows of the reality yet to come. And Christ himself is that reality. 18 Don’t let anyone condemn you by insisting on pious self-denial or the worship of angels,* saying they have had visions about these things. Their sinful minds have made them proud, 19 and they are not connected to Christ, the head of the body. For he holds the whole body together with its joints and ligaments, and it grows as God nourishes it.
20 You have died with Christ, and he has set you free from the spiritual powers of this world. So why do you keep on following the rules of the world, such as, 21 “Don’t handle! Don’t taste! Don’t touch!”? 22 Such rules are mere human teachings about things that deteriorate as we use them. 23 These rules may seem wise because they require strong devotion, pious self-denial, and severe bodily discipline. But they provide no help in conquering a person’s evil desires.