So, you are a Christian. What does that tell me? If you truly are a Christian, then to me you are an ordinary individual with or without a job, in good health or ill, skinny as a rail or needing more than a hundred pounds to lose person. Let me tell you what you are not...perfect. No matter how much you work at it or pray over it, you are not perfect. Christians have a handle that they are not perfect and sometimes slip more than they should. It's okay, God loves YOU!
When you shift the position from looking in to looking into a mirror, what the public sees, is something totally different. You are cheating on your wife. You take money from the collection. You have a DUI on your record. You have the psychological compulsion to steal small items in the grocery. You may have killed someone in a fit of rage. To those on the outside, those who consider themselves non-Christians, you are a hypocrite. They will point you out! Attempt to shame you, particularly in public and are quick to spread the news.
That's the good news. You know that people are going to point you out for the mistakes you have made, but don't care about the good you have done. Christians are never paraded in the streets because of the good they do but the things that what others see as un-Christianlike conduct. They have no idea what it is like to be a Christian. Your failings are carried around like a human billboard. The bright side is that that is what they except from non-Christians. It is to these 'blessed' people. They expect you to be superhuman. That is exactly what you are expected to be. At least, that is what is expected of you from those outside. There is no amount of goodness you could do to change their opinions because the first time you fail to help an old lady across they street you are a hypocrite and a prime example of why Christianity is evil, false, cruel and proof that God does not exist.
You know what? That's okay. It doesn't matter what other people say or do in reaction to you. It all boils down to the fact that God love you. He is more understanding than any other. He knows you are not perfect. He knows you will stumble and fall. In all actuality, Man has higher expectations of you than God does. God does not expect you to move mountains, but Man does. Remember, being a Christian means being Christ-like. Christian does not mean you are Christ.
