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Christianity: We're Doing it Wrong

"Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge."
     ~1 Peter 2:12

Most of us who have been a part of the church for any length of time have heard this verse, but are we really living it out? Sure you may be calm under pressure and smile at people even when you don't feel like it. You even show up at church every Sunday and greet people you don't know. You're doing everything right, or at least that's what you think. However, are you really keeping track of how well your actions are reflecting God's light all the time? Not many of us are, but we should be. When we don't, the results can be disastrous.

There's the pillar of faith in the church whose marriage is crashing to the ground. The teacher who loves God and loves her students, but has trouble loving members of her own family. The young adult who's on fire for God on Sunday morning, but lets the fires of anger spark fast and burn long the rest of the week. The misunderstanding during Sunday school that leads to to an argument filled with unkind words and false accusations. Not to mention the ultimate one that many in America know about. A man who justifies his own homophobia by stating that God hates gays and kills soldiers to punish America for tolerating them: Fred Phelps. All these just scratch the surface of all the ways we as Christians get it wrong.

"But Amy," you may say, "'by grace [we] have been saved through faith' (Ephesians 2:8). We've been saved! We've been forgiven!" Yes, we have been forgiven, however St. Paul also said, "What then? Shall we sin because we are no longer under the law but under grace? By no means!" (Romans 6:15) Us being saved should prompt us to sin less, not more. We've been forgiven for everything we've ever done and will ever do, but we need to rely on God to help us minimize our future sinning. This is especially true when we are around others who do not know our Savior. How are they going to get to know Christ if we aren't being true to Him in how we act? We are called to make disciples of every nation, and we can only do that if we are being true to our God in everything we do. We may slip up from time to time, but those mistakes need to be few and far between. New Christians are born only when current Christians live lives that align with the truth they speak.

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