Get real

(NB: This blog post is mainly written with a Christian audience in mind, but I don't want those of you reading this who are not Christ-followers to think that you can go through and read this and ignore what I say. I challenge you to look at your own beliefs as well and apply what I say towards that. Test yourself.)

We walk around and say in our hearts that we're Christians. When asked about our religious beliefs, either on paper or by people we know, we say we're Christians. After all, we go to church on Sundays and believe that Jesus is our Savior, pretty much. Maybe some of us even do the right things and try to follow the rules, or act the right way. Yeah, we're Christians.

Honestly, though, what do you really believe? Do you truly believe and are completely convicted in what you say you believe? And do your actions reflect what you believe, or is there a mismatch? If I held you and your beliefs up at gunpoint, would you back down?

Many times, we who say we are Christians will say things (usually parroting them back) that we know we should believe as Christians, but we don't truly believe them. Let's take a couple of examples here, and I ask you to be completely honest with yourself, because otherwise reading this blog post is a waste of your time.

1. Do you really believe that Jesus is really the Son of God and was crucified in order to carry the weight of your sin for you, an act of sacrificial atonement? And do you really believe He rose from the grave three days later? Seriously, to your average unchurched person it sounds like some sort of odd zombie story; do you really believe in it? And if your answer at this point is still yes, what are you doing about it? If you believe that Jesus did all of this for you, how are you responding to that? If this is all the case, and you believe it to be true from the bottom of your heart, you can't tell me that you can get away with going along with your life as you always have. You can't take something like this for granted. It's as though your best friend just saved your life by jumping in front of a bullet for you. Would you take that for granted, say "Oh thanks" and move on with your life? No, you would be changed in some way. Seriously, guys, if the full weight of what Jesus did for you is something you actually see as true, your life and outlook should theoretically be different from someone who doesn't.
2. Do you really believe that there is a Heaven and a Hell? (For the sake of the rest of this example, we are going to use my definition of Heaven and Hell, with Heaven being eternal life with God and Hell being eternal life without God, and that's the end of it; aka, no burning fiery pit or pearly gates or crap like that, stuff that has gotten blown out of proportion recently due to traditions rather than scriptural evidence.) If you really believe that there's a Heaven and a Hell, do you really believe that God would ever send someone to Hell? And do you believe that Hell is as bad as it's cracked up to be? Why do you believe that? Seriously, is it so bad to spend eternity without this God? Why should anyone want to live with a God who would send them to Hell anyways? And if you truly believe that life without God is not worth living and would be near torturous in and of itself, are you empathetic enough to understand and believe that there are people in the world who possibly are going to end up suffering because they know nothing of what you believe and know as true? If what you believe is true, and people will end up in this state without God if they don't know this God, and your believe that to be the worst-case scenario, why aren't you sharing your beliefs and thereby showing them a better option? Some of you will read this and think to yourselves that this sounds overly-evangelical and like bible-thumping. I could care less what you think about that, because I know what I just wrote is valid. If you're someone who believes that Hell is an awful place and is in fact the worst place people could end up, why wouldn't you try to show people a better alternative? Does that make sense, or am I not coming across clear enough?

Obviously, if you don't believe any of these things, no harm done. But I am quite sick of the hypocrisy that exists in Christian communities. Did you know that hypocrisy is the number one reason behind why people who are not Christian say that they don't like Christians? Hypocrisy, by the way, is pretty much pretending to have certain values and beliefs that you don't actually truly hold. And I'm not saying I'm not guilty of being a hypocrite at times (prime example would be me saying to someone that God loves everyone including myself, no matter what you do, and then going and hating on myself when I'm alone and feeling like He doesn't love me because of what I've done). What I am saying, though, is we need to carefully consider what we believe and how that affects our lives, because if you really believe what the Gospel says, why shouldn't your life be changed by that? It's kind of shakes up one's world and worldview.

There's a cliche that says we should practice what we preach. I'm suggesting we practice what we believe, because whatever "preaching" you may do will have no effect unless you're actually living it out, and you can't possibly live it out unless you really believe it in your heart. Whatever your beliefs are, I seriously challenge you to take this seriously and take this to heart. And I'm not denying that I myself need to do this as well. So if you're up for it, we can enter this challenge to actually be real together.