THE PAIN OF HYPOCRISY

I will never understand how some people can claim Jesus as their Savior yet live as if they had never experienced His saving grace. How they can ask God to redeem them while living unrepentant, unremorseful lives. How they can talk as if they know Christ when their actions show clearly that they know nothing about Him.

These kinds of people do more harm for the kingdom than Satan could ever hope to accomplish. They are the enemy’s greatest allies in a world that already looks for ways to discount the claims of Christ. Paul tells us, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). For too long Christians have conformed to the ways of the world. We have allowed the world to not only affect us but to completely infect us. To take over our hearts and minds and keep us in bondage to sin, even though we convince ourselves that we are free.

But Jesus promises to bring transformation to our hearts and minds, to renew us, to change the way we think and live and act. If we have not allowed Him to do that, we have not really accepted Him.

“Create in me a pure heart, O God,” wrote David, “and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). These words should epitomize the desire of every follower of Christ. They should be our prayer daily. To ask God for a new heart and a new mind, to plead for a pure life, to strive moment by moment to live with greater mercy and grace and innocence. To become more like Jesus with each passing day.

When the world looks at us, what they see will define their view of God. It will shape how they perceive our heavenly Father, what they think of Him, how they come to understand His goodness and grace. We are ambassadors for the kingdom of God in a lost and fallen world. And our actions, both good and bad, will reflect directly on God.

Nicky Cruz, internationally known evangelist and prolific author, turned to Jesus Christ from a life of violence and crime after meeting David Wilkerson in New York City in 1958. The story of his dramatic conversion was told first in The Cross and the Switchblade by David Wilkerson and then later in his own best-selling book Run, Baby, Run.