1. Act shocked when unbelievers act like
unbelievers.
2. Sequester yourself with only other believers.
3. Be perpetually offended, and make sure everyone knows why.
4. Pontificate loudly, in person and online, about your political beliefs.
5. Make it difficult to reconcile the way you treat people with the Jesus you claim to follow.
6. Equate beliefs that differ from your own with moral failure.
7. Articulate love without demonstrating it.
8. Use behavior as a litmus test for belonging.
9. Pursue people based on an agenda, then package it as relationship.
10. Leave no doubt about your judgment but plenty about your love.
It seems, for many, that it has become far too easy to defend the teachings of Jesus while behaving in ways that are antithetical to the person of Jesus.
If we are not careful, we turn into bouncers and gatekeepers, hurling truth without grace, imposing righteousness without mercy, expecting transformation without relationship, and becoming so preoccupied with identifying everything Jesus is against that people never encounter through us what He is for.
Our peers may applaud our zeal, but perhaps itβs time to consider whose applause weβre using to measure faithfulnessβ¦and Whose really matters.
βBy this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.β
~ ππ¨π‘π§ ππ:ππ
If we err at all, may it be on the side of love.