Ranting.

''The Bible tells us to love our neighbors, and also to love our enemies; probably because generally they are the same people." G.K. Chesterton

I have been thinking (& don't ask if it hurts?!). I blog hop all over the place & skim from link to link so I read all sorts of stuff & the thing I find hardest as a Christian is doing the tightrope walk of what I actually believe because I am not as liberal as I was raised nor as conservative as many conservatives think I should be. And that, friends, is undoubtedly the result of a misspent life.





I do not get all hot & bothered about what the world does. It is the world. There would be something amiss if it was not behaving according to its nature. I do not get fraught about Christians who hold different doctrinal views, practise their beliefs differently, or refuse to attend a denominational church. I have worked with the homeless, the homosexual, the battered, & the drug addicted without feeling the urgent need to ram my beliefs down their throats because God gave each of us free will & we are free to exercise that free will by our choices. It is not that I don't care but however much I disagree I need to respect another's choice. After all, God does.

What does get my goat & have me frothing at the mouth, tearing my hair out, & up on my soap box ranting & raving are *professing* Christians living in blatant sin & bringing our Lord & saviour into disrepute. No, I am not talking about well known public figures who fall from grace. There but for the grace of God, you know. I am talking about the ordinary people who sit in their pew week after week all sanctimonious & self righteous, spouting all the right things & out in the world, instead of living God's truth, they behave in ways,week after week after week, that make one wish not to be known by the same name as they are. By their fruits...

Liddy says working in retail has been a real eye~opener. She has got to see the church when it isn't in church. To say she has not been impressed would be a massive understatement. Yes, lots of the church is the same but too often they are not & it is in the little things it shows up the most: a lack of patience when forced to wait; rudeness to staff who are on their feet all day; magazines that should go home in a brown paper bag & be burnt unread; sexual comments around young girls. It does not matter that they may be sexually active or heard worse. Christians should be different! The world notices & takes note of who we are every day & it judges, not by how many *good deeds* we do (charity is obnoxious), or how much money we give, or who we vote for, or what we wear but by how we are!

I do not care if you wear dresses or pants, wear your hair long or short, cover or not. I do not care if you are *only* KJV, or read the Good News. I do not care if you sing loud & long with your hands in the air or sit in silence. How is your personal walk with Christ? How are you doing with your personal holiness? It's hard, this holiness thing...& it must be done. Not only does no~one see heaven without holiness but genuine holiness is one of the most attractive things on this earth. It draws people like nothing else. Christ was, & is, holy. It attracted multitudes. Our lack of holiness is turning people away, indifferent to the gospel. If we are doing our job no~one will be indifferent. We should be being persecuted because the world should be antagonistic towards us. We should be attracting those whom God is calling. If we say we are Christ's we are meant to be becoming more & more like Him, holy as he is holy. If we would stop fussing about what doesn't matter & concentrate on the things God says are important we might actually be the salt & light in the world that we are meant to be.

Here endeth the rant according to Ganeida.