John Wayne?

Who's your favorite actor?

I had to use John Wayne or my mama might not forgive me :)

Now, I never met John Wayne but
if all I knew was what I saw on the silver screen,
 then I would believe he was a cowboy.
I bet the people he lived with knew better.
I'm sure they knew all too well the roles he played,
but they also knew who he really was when he put the script down.

John Wayne...well really, acting is on my mind today.
 I came across a quote during my quiet time this morning.

"They cared about APPEARING righteous more than actually BEING righteous."
Whitney Capps
#first5

It was referring to the Pharisees in the New Testament,
who cared so much about outward appearances and rule following.
But when I paused to think this quote through,
I realized that it could also describe me.

Have we Christians ever put on an act?
Just done the thing because we were supposed to?
Put on our mask and sat in church and made nice every week?
Study and teach Sunday School lessons that never changed our hearts?
Sang songs in the choir without ever hearing or applying the words?
Sat through sermon after sermon with little or no change in our lives?
Have we ever been so good in those roles that we have influenced people
 for the cause of Christ?

Please know that I'm the last one passing judgment on this topic.
I am guilty.
But I think many other people are guilty as well, they just don't realize it.

I believe that there are many of us who are almost squeaky clean to the outside world.
To those people who sit on the outside and only see us
for short periods of time on the "silver screen,"
we must look like we have it all together.
Some of us probably deserve an Academy Award for our performances.

So what's the problem?
If we are still influencing others for Christ, then what's the big deal?
(I'm glad you asked.)

I've thought of a couple of problems....
1) We are not living up to our full potential in Christ. We are not allowing God to truly transform us. We are missing out on who HE is and all that HE has for us.
2) The problem that I find most devastating for Christans is that sometimes we lose the people that we love the most. I'm talking about those people who are the closest, those people who live in our houses, the ones that know the roles we play, the people who see us when we put the script down. They are the ones who see the truth. They KNOW the act.
They know all about our APPEARING and not BEING. They see right through our act.
What could be more devastating to a believer than to know that you yourself have eternal life but those you love the most reject what you know is the truth?

So what should we do about it?
Surrenender, that's it.
The answer is so simple, yet so hard to do.
Ask HIM.
Ask HIM to show us the places in our lives where we are writing the story and not HIM.
And then when HE shows it to us.....let's hand HIM the pen.

Thinking back to the quote........
APPEARING righteous is something that I can do for myself.
BEING righteous is something that only GOD can do.

And what others need to see is what God can do.
They see enough of us and what we can do and many times it turns them away.

But HE can change people.
HE can change us when we are surrendered to HIM.
And HE can change those we love,
those who have not been accepting what we are dishing out.

Let's not miss out on who HE is or cause others to miss out as well.

Let's don't just make random "Christian" appearances.
But let's BE everyday.