Don't Open That Door

I recently had a discussion with one of my friends who is part of the group discussion that guided me to start this blog. This discussion focused on Christians loving their neighbors as they do themselves. In reality how can we love our neighbor when we do not love ourselves and if we don’t love ourselves does that give us an out to not love our neighbor?

I will get to the first point in more detail but to simply answer the second point the answer is no, this does not give us an out. Jesus also tells us to love as He loved and the idea of loving others as you love yourself is that you will put the needs of others on the same level as your own needs if not higher. The Bible is a wonderfully woven book that we cannot cherry pick and take piece by piece. We have to look at it as a whole. The whole picture shows us that loving others should be our top priority, so our concern for ourselves is irrelevant to how we feel about others.

Now back to the first point, How can we love our neighbors when we in fact do not love ourselves?

The fact of the matter is that we cannot. Here is where I am going to get into some deeper water as this is an issue that is affecting many people in and out of Churches everywhere.

Have you ever been getting ready for company to come over and you have that one closet that you just throw everything in and lock. Just hope it stays shut and no one will see the mess behind the door. Our lives are the same way and when we give our hearts to God the concept is to allow him to clean out the entire thing. Unfortunately, when we allow God to come in to clean we tend to keep that closet locked. We tell God, “you can clean everything else, but the closet is the stuff I can’t get rid of just yet”. We tell ourselves so many excuses and make up so many stories why these things mean so much to us that we cannot get rid of them. Inside this closet is a total mess of things. There is sin that we are not ready to part with yet, there are things from our past that we don’t feel like we can let go of just yet and so much more. We pack the closet full of all the things we don’t want anyone to see and we tell God to clean the rest.

Now is when the fun begins. That sin you are hiding starts to grow. The guilt of your past that is wearing you down is getting heavier. The fear of your friends finding out the truth is starting to close in on you. You have always really known that one day everyone would know your secret but you didn’t think it would be this soon. What are you going to do? Here is my response to my friend:

I heard a quote one time "Down people bring people down". Christians are not immune to that. Unfortunately, many Christians I know live in a constant fear of the world finding out some deep dark secret that they are hiding and honestly it is a part of their life they have not even given to God. This is the big bad sin in the closet one would say. Here is how I normally see it playing out: Christian has hidden sin in their life and is afraid of the world finding out or afraid of the church finding out so they are constantly pulling other people down as well. The more they think their sin is going to be uncovered the more they will work to knock others off their pedestals. The thought being if I can divert everyone's attention to your sin or your problems then no one will be looking at mine. Normally, a Christian who is constantly pointing out the sin in others is hiding something. (That is my opinion) We are all sinners and the only thing that separates us is the acceptance of Jesus Christ as our salvation. Doesn't make us perfect but it allows us a heart of repentance but many Christians are still holding on to that one deep dark sin that they cannot let go of and it tears them apart from the inside until it is either brought to the service or ruins them. So in my opinion the holier than thou attitude is actually a false flag that Christians use to try and hide their own sins. If we look at how God handled non-believers he never acted better than them or told them they had to change to receive Him. He took them as they were and allowed the change to take place over time in their heart. Look at the disciples; they were the closest to Jesus but they still faltered in His presence as they were growing.

Christians would be so much better off if we just stopped trying to hide our struggles from the real world and allowed the world to see us for who we are. When a lost person enters a church and see a room full of people acting like they have it together and don't struggle they immediately feel no connection because it is not real. I will close with this reminder: Your hidden sin is not just yours, it affects those around you and will cripple your outreach to the world unless you unlock the door and allow God full access.