Bad Decision Leads To Good Instruction

So where did I go to church today? ERCC. Why? I wanted to see if Jessica was there.

It was a bad decision, plain and simple. I wasn't thinking about church. I was thinking about my social life. Guess what? She wasn't even there! Gotta love karma. But it wasn't all bad.

The pastor talked about something that I had heard from another pastor earlier this year. What it all boils down to is: you can tell a Christian by how he lives his life. That's a gross oversimplification, especially because I know a bunch of good, nice people that aren't Christians, but the flip side is I know a bunch of crumbs that claim to be Christian.

The concept is this: I can claim to be a Christian, but if there isn't any evidence of Christianity in my life, then I'm either a liar or a hypocrite. There are plenty of people who claim to be Christians that aren't. Some are obvious, like Larry Flynt (publisher of Hustler magazine). Others are very hard to tell. That's the lying part.

The hypocrite part is the harder one to figure out, especially at church. When you're at church, you tend to act a certain way. It's how you act when your're NOT in church that really tells the story. There are exceptions, of course, but identifying a hypocrite takes a little more time. But I digress.

The upshot is this: if you really want to be a Christian, then it has to show in your life outside the church house. If you claim to be a Christian, and it doesn't show, then your integrity is rightly called into question. (Disclaimer: I'm just as guilty of this as everyone else, and my integrity has been called on more than one occasion.) This all goes back to John 15 and the part that says a good vine cannot produce bad fruit and vice versa, with the principle being that you can tell a Christian by the type of fruit he produces.

While the message was good, I must confess that I was disappointed, but not because I didn't see the girl I was interested in. I had thought about going to some of the small groups that the church is going to start shortly, but not after hearing them described. After the service the leaders of the small groups got up and did a one minute spiel about what they were going to do. Their advertising was less then stellar, and I really didn't hear about any subjects that I would be interested in.

Long story short, I should have trusted my instincts and gone to another church instead of chasing a non-existent relationship, but I did get a consolation prize. Hopefully next Sunday will be different.