How Much Do You Believe?
“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love another.”
There are a lot of people who truly believe that they are better than others. Many of those people believe that they are better than others because they have religion and go to church. That may not make they better. That might just make them showoffs. Nobody likes a showoff. Not even God.
Jesus told that wonderful story once about two people in the synagogue. One stepped inside, dropped to his knees, did not even dare to look up at the sanctuary, and beat his breast saying, “Forgive me, Lord. I am a sinful man.” The other man arrogantly made eye contact up front, as if to put himself as God’s equal, and praised himself while condemning “the sinner.” He was so steeped in sin that he did not recognize that he was the bigger sinner. Jesus indicated that it was the first man, not the braggart, who was heard and forgiven.
My dad used to have a saying that he would employ from time to time: “That person has just enough knowledge to be dangerous.” Sometimes he even directed that saying to us, his sons. And he was right. We would think that we knew what we were doing because we had seen him do something once. We would then proceed in an attempt to show him up, only to fail miserably. We had just enough knowledge to be dangerous.
Having religion and living religion are two different things. Going to church does not get us a ticket to heaven. Living the faith is what is essential.
We can try to name drop all we want; but, dropping the name of Jesus while performing the deeds of the devil are not going to help us one iota. If we want to have any chance at all of entering heaven, we not only have to claim to be Christian, we have to live as Christians.
That means loving one another. That’s right. That means everyone.
FAITH ACTION: Pray for someone you typically ignore or put down and ask God to help change your attitude toward that person