Hypocrisy

I would be sorry to all of you who have been following this blog for not posting anything in such a long time, but I am afraid no one is following this blog... Today's topic, hypocrisy. A certain man by the name of Mark Driscoll, some of you may have heard of him, will be involved in a debate that will be aired on ABC's Nightline about the question of Satan and whether or not he exists. But the point of this blog is not to discuss the debate or Mark Driscoll, but rather the responses that I viewed on the Seattle Time's website on an article simply stating that this event was going to occur at Mars Hill Church. I found myself wanting to laugh and scream more than applaud the nearly 80 responses that I read. Most of laughs and screaming would have been aimed at those who tried to show some knowledge of the Christian faith in order to sling arrows at it. However, most, if not all of them missed the target... By a mile. All this said to bring forth my point. In a city that is so centered on diversity and tolerance, why do we still not include everyone? I feel that if you are in Seattle and are a member of Bible believing church such as Mars Hill, you do not count as a person that deserves the love and tolerance granted to everyone else that lives in this city. I was speaking to a friend of mine a few weeks back about why he was an agnostic and wouldn't consider himself a Christian. His response, "all Christian's are hypocrits, and I can't stand that." The first thing that came into my mind was, you are right, as Christians we strive to live lives apart from sin and follow the call of Jesus and the Bible upon our lives. And yes, we are hypocrits, because it is impossible to live a sinless live, and we all fall short of the glory of God. But what makes this man sitting next to me free from hypocrisy? Simple, if you make your own rules, it is impossible to break them. Think of a world where everything was relative, and we believed and followed only that which we want and believe? Scary, huh? The sad thing is, the postmodern world that we live in teaches us that this is okay, and in Seattle that is the direction that we are headed in. This is the sad thing about the world that we live in, everything is relative. If it is okay for me, it is okay for me and that is all that matters. That is not what the God of the Bible teaches us, and if this is the god that you believe in, you might want to rethink the life you are living. The Bible is not a collection of writings that was put together nearly 2000 years ago that is now outdated, it is still relevent and is perfect. No adjustments need to be made but the adjustments in our lives. Is this intolerant? A little. But as I remember Jesus got mad at people on occasion, but did he still love everyone? Yes. I love this city and all the people that live in it, but I believe that the people of Seattle really need to think about the lives they are living and think about where they are headed. We are not the rulers of our own lives. We did not create ourselves and we do not save ourselves. If you think that there is no God, and there is no after life, fine. But if you believe in the after life and a heaven or hell, you should think about where you get that idea. You should think about what it looks like and how to get there. And when you have come to your conclusions about those questions, you should follow the God of the Bible, who saves us through his infinite love. Thank you Jesus for salvation, and new life, I pray that you would change the hears of the people in this city.