The Divine Crash

Why are Christians allowed to be jerks?  Do people who believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins believe they can be the rudest people on the planet?  I get cut off by more drivers with fish on their cars than anyone else.  To often I get yelled at by someone coming out of church.  I live near two churches and on a regular basis “Christians” will park in-front of half my drive way, not enough to keep me out but enough to be really annoying.

Aren’t Christians supposed to have a transformed life?  If we were complete jerks before shouldn’t our new life and new identity in Christ make us different? If it does then how come most Christians don’t look different? Two examples.

Today, I’m driving home from seminary (note the irony) and a man in the left lane driving a brand new white Cadillac with a fish on the car is driving 50 in a 65.  So I pass him on the right and after getting the required two car lengths in front of him I go back into the left lane.  The Cadillac driver promptly gives me the finger while beeping his horn.

Last night, I am watching Parking Wars and a parking enforcement officer gives tickets to a group of church vans and one of the pastors gets upset because he says “We are Christians we shouldn’t get parking tickets!” What?!? Really?? How does that make sense? The man getting the ticket for parking in a no parking zone says “I am a Christian and it is not a sin to park here.  It is a sin for that man to give me a ticket, he needs to give non-Christians tickets.”  After that the camera cuts away to the parking enforcement agent who talks about needing to do his job.

Are Christians really any better than non-Christians or are they worse because they are forgiven so we do whatever we feel like?

How then are we supposed to act?  What if we acted like Jesus? What if instead of giving the finger to people as we are driving we forgave them?  What if instead of saying we were forgiven we actually acted like we were forgiven? What if instead of hating our neighbor we actually loved our neighbor?

Even as a Christian it is very easy to hate and very easy to hurt others, but what of using our energy to hurt we used our energy to love Jesus and love others.

What would that do to the world around us?

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Random Thoughts by RevBT