Let me first clarify,
I am not calling us (The Salvation Army) “The Church of the Hyprocrites”…but sometimes if the shoe fits.
What I am pondering today is whether or not we can fall into this category from time to time without even realizing it. Perhaps it manifests itself in us when a new visitor attends our corps and we immediately judge them on the merits of what they wear or how they act or don’t act. Perhaps we become the hypocrite in the way that we treat each other or how we talk about one another behind their backs. Perhaps being a hypocrite isn’t as simple as “those people” after all. Maybe, just maybe we find ourselves being a hypocrite more often then we at first realized.
Let me first talk to the hypocrite in us all (if we dare to EVER admit that we struggle with this…I should say I am first talking to the hypocrite in ME before I talk to you)…
DEAR HYPOCRITE:
You are destroying the fellowship of believers.
Your words and practices are not always in step with each other.
You say one thing and expect others to follow those commands, while at the same time you are not living up to those expectations either. Stop living this lie! Other DO see you! You are visible to other believers and would be believers. If you want to see this church plateau in its growth, in its fruit of the spirit, in its spiritual nourishment, just keep doing what you’re doing, because soon enough you will see its demise. If you can’t practice what you preach then how can you expect others to do it? If you don’t care about anyone other than how they appear and how they measure up, then you don’t really care at all. Stop judging. Stop playing the role of judge, jury and executioner. This was never your role. This was never yours to command in the first place. The Church of Hypocrites needs to die a fast, sudden death! It cannot continue to flourish. It has existed for far too long within the fellowship of believers. Call it the remnants of sin, call it unforgiveness, call it what you want…but it needs to die! We cannot thrive, we cannot survive like this anymore!
To The Victims of Hypocrisy
Forgive me when I have judged you.
Forgive them when the church of the hypocrites have wronged you.
You have a reason to be angry.
You have every excuse to retaliate.
You have every excuse to walk away and quite your search of godly people.
But don’t.
In your forgiveness, please be the example of Christ that we have failed to be.
Please show us the error of our ways by how you do not return that spite!
Please rise above this.
Please try to see us as fallen too.
Dear Salvation Army,
We cannot ever tolerate the Church of the Hypocrites.
We cannot allow this to exist among our ranks.
There are no favorites in these ranks.
There are no exceptions.
We cannot pursue both Holiness and Hypocrisy.
We cannot thrive with this poison in our veins.
There is not place for it in our corps, or in our halls, or in our offices.
Micah 6:8 Says;
“He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.
And what does the Lord require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God.“
We can never love mercy and walk humbly with our God when we are better than others.
We can never exist humbly in fellowship with God if we wrong our brother and sister in Christ.
We can never be a holy Soldier for Him while wearing our uniforms and judge others by our human standards.
Dear Soldiers of the faith,
We were never called to be the Church of the Hypocrites, nor allow it to remain within our ranks.
It begins in my heart.
It begins in your heart.
From there we can change.
From there we can eradicate this blight on the soul.
From there we can change this Army from the inside out.
The real question is, are we willing to?
Something more for this Army to ponder today.
To God be the glory!
