We need to stop telling people about Sunshine-and-rainbows-Christianity

Everything's fine? Everything's ok? Not really!

   You know what I'm talking about.  The kind of Christianity where everything is fine and everything is OK.  Where we're happy all the time because Jesus took our problems away. The kind where everything is right in the world and nobody suggests that you may be wrong. The kind where we say one thing and mean the other. The kind where we're all dressed-up but broken inside. That kind of Christianity.

   There are two sides to every coin and this is the flip-side. There are things things that you may be struggling with and Jesus can take those off your hands...

 but it's a process.
God is not a magician and He can't make it all go away overnight because how will you ever learn. How will you not fall back into the same patterns without knowing what it cost for you to get of them. Even addicts don't necessarily get clean by going cold turkey. not without serious adverse effects. And we are people who are addicted to sin.

   And maybe your struggle isn't sin. Maybe it's something that you want very badly. Have you considered that maybe the reason you don't already have it is that it's not right for you? Or maybe you're not ready to handle it right at this exact moment in time?

  

   There's been a sort of ideology going round the past couple of years about not judging people who sin differently from you. And this is the verse used to back it up:

Matthew 7:1-3

Judge not, that you be not judged. 2 For with what judgement you judge, you will be judged; and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.3 And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye, but do not consider the plank in your own eye?

 And they're sort of right. The English dictionary defines judgement as:

the ability to make considered decisions or come to sensible conclusions.

So obviously we as human beings don't have the right to condemn each others' wrongdoing because none of us is always on the right side of the law (For all have sinned and fallen short). But as the church we've gotten to a place where we'd rather not speak the truth so as to avoid appearing judgemental.

But the Bible also says;

2nd Timothy 3: 16-17

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

 And that's what Jesus did.  Jesus walked up to with people and told them straight up that they needed to change their lives and repent. He told them exactly what was wrong in their lives while still loving them and without mocking them or looking better than them. (And technically, He was better than them because He was the son of God. As in , the only guy never to have sinned ever!) Yet people still followed Him so He must have been doing something right.

So yes,  love your neighbour... but love him/her with the truth. Do it with Grace and care but don't compromise on what the Bible says. I'd like to think that the truth would be preferable to lies. Because people get really hurt when they realise they were spiralling and none of their 'loved-ones' did a thing about it.

   Christianity is not a bunch of people standing on a pedestal of holier-than-thouness telling everyone else what to do.  Even though that's what we make it look like sometimes. It's a support group. It's a group of people coming together with full knowledge of their issues and striving to be better. Striving to be Christ-like.

Ciao...