I’m guessing that we have all either been faced with or used a familiar saying.  “And why did you stop going to church or why do you not go?” Here it is: ready for it?

“Because the church is made up of hypocrites.” “There are too many hypocrites” or some version of that accusation. 

You know? That argument is so weak it is weak.  

Of course there are! Find one who isn’t? 

But let me back up a bit. Define hypocrite.  There is the rub. If by being a sinner, we are all hypocrites. Even the person who is making the accusation.  🙂 But being a hypocrite is much more than that.  Hypocrisy is the mortal enemy of the work of God’s amazing grace. It is not hypocritical to commit to live as God commanded and to fail. Which we all will do. The difference is that hypocrisy involves intentionality. Hypocrisy makes a public confession of commitment to God but has no intention of living out that public confession. Hypocrisy settles for religious displays but no desire to “practice what I preach.”  Shades of Jesus’ words in Mt. 23:3 & 5: “So practice and obey whatever they tell you, but don’t follow their example. For they don’t practice what they teach….Everything they do is for show.”  

The problem with hypocrisy is we often fool ourselves into thinking that all we have to do is some religious ritual(s) and we are good to go. Went to church. Check. Sang songs. Check. Taught a kid’s class. Check. Worked in the nursery. Check. Listened to Pastor Bill drone on. Check. (That should get them a free ticket to heaven! 🙂 )  Helped pick up stuff. Check. I got a lot of check marks on my “Good-to-go” list.  And therein likes the danger. Assuming doing religious stuff is all we need to do. No change of lifestyle. No change of language. No change of the way I treat people. No change from “It’s all about me.” That is the definition of a hypocrite. 

Let’s stop kidding ourselves. Let’s start being real. Let’s start practicing what we preach outside the walls of the church building. Will we sin? You bet. But that doesn’t make us a hypocrite; it makes us human. And I’d rather be human than a fake person pretending to be someone I have no intention of being.