You Give Christians a Bad Name

Yesterday I read this article in Rolling Stone Magazine called "Jesus Made Me Puke" by Matt Tailbi http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/20278737/jesus_made_me_puke. The author writes about his experience on a Christian retreat with a well known mega church in, TX. His whole premise is to pretend he is a Christian so he can expose the Christian right. Millions of people are inevitibly going to read this article and come to the conclusion that this experience is what Christianity is all about and by the same token that anyone who calls themselves a Christian is like this. I encourage you to read the article for yourself.

When I first started reading the article, I thought it was going to be about how he can't stand the idea of Christianity. I was angry with the author for even suggesting such a title and such a prank as the one he was pulling. By the end of the article I was no longer upset with the author but with the Christians he was writing about.

One of the major things the caught my attention was the discussion of the session where demons were being cast out. Basically the whole congregation was encouraged to open their mouths and the pastor for two hours cast out demons. He cast out the demon of lust, idolotry, incest, etc. The author said one of the demons was "handwriting analysis". Okay, what? I mean maybe the author made that one up. The thing is that these people were buying into this casting out of demons experience.

I know this is going to get into a lot of doctrinal stuff and we may be divided where we stand on this issue. But, here is my argument. It is not possible for Christians to be filled with demons. We are filled with His Holy Spirit if we are truly saved. Another thing, God gave us Free Will. Adam and Eve made the choice to buy into the devils lies and disobey God. We decide to choose to entertain lustful thoughts and act them out thus resulting in sin. Satan and Demons cannot force us to do anything against our will, just as God cannot force us to do anything against our will. We can be tempted, but we still have the ultimate decision about deciding to give into the tempations.

What this article means to me is that an alarming number of Christians are not reading and studying their bibles. We are told in 2 Timothy 2:15 (NKJV) "Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth." Rightly dividing the word of truth - this is so crucial to our personal walk with God as well as to the body of Christ as a whole. You give Christians a bad name when you fail to heed this scripture.

It is no wonder the leftists think that Christians are all a bunch of lunatics. I am not talking about the scripture in Corinthians that talks about being wise by the world's standardes and becoming a fool to be truly wise. I'm talking about walking the narrow way and not being decieved by wolves in sheeps clothing.

Is it just me or has anybody else noticed that there are more and more articles being written about Christians these days? I don't know, maybe I'm just reading too many liberal magazines. The thing is that these liberal magazines are reaching out to their target audience and then some. They are voicing their opinions and taking action, while too many of us Christians have become complacent and inactive.

It is important (and I'm speaking to myself included) to truly study the issues that are out there and pray about them, so that our decisions line up with God's decisions. Don't just buy into things at face value - Jesus gave us a huge warning that we would be decieved by the wolves in sheeps clothing. I'm afraid I've allowed myself to be fooled for too long. I'm realizing more and more that the things Jesus warned us about are not the obvious things that I automatically think of. But isn't that the way Satan always operates - deception?