“Why are you hanging out with people like that?”
“Are you aware of what you’re making your life look like now?”
“Perception is reality, so even if you’re not doing anything wrong, it still looks like it.”
I’m not one to get all riled and make a big ol' deal about things; but this particular subject and these naive statements really infuriate me. And I believe this right here is one of the (if not the biggest) reasons why people high tail off and sprint away from Christianity – legalism, assumption and judgement and arrogant ego.
Yes, I’m aware that sounds harsh but quite frankly, I don’t care. Christians are never going to expand the Kingdom and share God’s love with people if we are only caught up in our perfect and holy mindset held within the church and church friends. And what I don’t get, is all these people have everything in the world to say about “saving the lost” but then there is no momentum towards it and the idea of a perfect and holy life within in the church is maintained while never taking a step out of it to reach “the lost.”
I think what grinds my gears the most is the “perception is reality, so even if you’re not doing anything wrong, it still looks like it.” You guys! Why is that even a thing? That statement within itself is straight ignorance. I believe with all my heart that you can know who you are in Christ, you can be in love with God, and you can sustain yourself in your morals away from your church friends to go out and be a Jesus to someone who has not a clue of who He is.
Yes. I hang out with atheists, agnostics, drug addicts, alcoholics and people who are unfamiliar with what Christianity even is. I spend time with them. And they are all wonderful people. Believing what I believe or not, doing what I do or not, living the way I do or not, they are all people with souls, and they are wonderful.
So when I am asked if I’m aware with what others are perceiving about who I’m spending time with, it irks me. Because I am well aware.
I can never doubt God, or run away from Him. Because I have seen with my own eyes do incredible things and He has completely turned my life around. I love God. Without a doubt. But I don’t even prefer to consider myself a Christian to others. Why? Because the outlook and the view of Christians for the way that they act has become loathsome.
If Christianity has turned into Christians gathering up together and praising God together by themselves
If Christianity has become a little bubble that if you step out of to speak to somebody who is not one of us
If Christianity has become perception is reality
If Christianity has become a crowd that is blazing out arrogant ego
If Christianity has become us judging one of our loved ones because they don’t spend all of their time with their church friends
then shoot, I don’t want that.
I want to love God wholeheartedly in all I do. I want to genuinely love people. Whatever they may look like and whatever they may do, I want to love them. I want to spend time with them, and have fun with them sometimes and other times have real talk with them. I want to be the light in others life that they may not find anywhere else. I want to serve God, serve the church, I want to live like Jesus. And let me tell you, Jesus didn’t spend His time with the saints. It was the quite opposite actually.
And I love that.
