When I was 16 years old I was invited to have dinner with my girlfriend’s family. I can still remember the anxiety I felt over the idea of sitting at the dinner table with her father staring through me looking for all my flaws. I think the part that scared me the most was the thought that he might be able to read my mind ( I later learned this is an ability most fathers have).
The main course that night was fried chicken. We all approached the dinner table and I made sure I watched how they did everything, from how they sat down, to how they placed their napkins in their laps. I did not want to seem like I didn’t belong. When it came time to eat I noticed the entire family was eating their chicken with a fork. Now this was something I had never seen before, eating fried chicken with a fork. I picked up my fork and clumsily began trying to dissect the chicken with my fork. My girlfriends older brother who was watching me destroy my chicken laughed and said; ” you don’t have to eat your chicken the way we do it.” I was so glad he said what he did because I probably would have left hungry that night. So I picked up my chicken with my hands and ate it how I had always eaten chicken, and when I finished I licked all my fingers.
My dinner experience was not that different from my early experiences in church. Trips to church were usually filled with anxiety because I was afraid of not doing something right. I would carefully watch others and copied what they did. Even after I became a christian I was scared that I might not say the “right” things or pray the “right” way. This made my early experiences as a christian superficial and based on others opinions. I was trying to impress others by living for Christ rather than just simply being myself and living in Christ.
When I realized that Jesus simply wanted me to live in him it liberated me to truly live for him. We sometimes get this backwards. We try to live for God without first living in him. This will sometimes get you approval from others but It will not bring about lasting change. Jesus said that if we first live in him our lives will become “fruitful.”
I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.- John 14:5
Living for God without first living in him brings about religion. Living in him brings a relationship. When we live in him he makes the necessary changes from within us that leads to the very life we want to live. Jesus called those who externally try to live for God” hypocrites” (see Matthew chapter 6). The greek word used in the original text for hypocrite means to play act, or live your life on a stage. It means to act like someone who you are not. If you are trying to live for God without first being changed on the inside, then you are being hypocritical. Being hypocritical is not about making mistakes or doing the wrong things, it is about the outside not matching the inside.
We can choose to play act the life of a christian, or we can choose to live in Christ and allow him to give us the ability to live a life that is “Christ like.”
It is time to get real.
