Some
days you just have to fake it. You wake up exhausted and unmotivated, but
you’ve got a big presentation to give at work, so you muster up some phony
enthusiasm. It’s a night when you just want to sink into the couch and watch
TV, but you have a dinner party to attend, so you force a smile and act like
you couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. We’ve all been there—sometimes for
the sake of appearances, you channel your inner actor and put on a show.
Sunday
morning may be when this happens the most—no matter how stressful the morning
has been up to that point, when you walk through the doorway of the church,
you’re all smiles. No matter what kind of week you’ve had, when someone asks
you how you’re doing, your stock answer is “great.” And no matter what grudges
you’re holding, what anger you’re feeling, what arguments have shaped your
week, you walk into the sanctuary to worship as though nothing ever happened.
While
this kind of pretending may fool your fellow believers, the Bible makes clear
that God wants no part of it. In teaching about anger, Jesus says that you have
an obligation to set things right with your fellow believers before you can
expect to set things right with God. You cannot present yourself to God as pure
in heart while simultaneously resenting a brother or sister in Christ, because
He sees right through the act that fools others.
What
God desires is not followers who smile for the camera while seething underneath.
What He wants is for your devotion to Him to extend to all areas of your life,
including and especially your relationships with others. If you would be
generous with Him then you must also be generous with others; if you would show
Him love then you must show others love; if you would be forgiven by Him then you
must forgive others. You cannot compartmentalize faith by giving God your best
and everyone else your worst. May you instead follow Jesus in all that you
do—not just when it’s time to put on a show.
No comments:
Post a Comment