CHRISTIAN HYPOCRISY

Christianity is often misunderstood to be something it’s not. Perhaps the most common argument for this misunderstanding is usually founded upon claims of Christian hypocrisy; that is, any person who claims to have faith in Jesus, but who lives just like a person without faith.

Notably, arguments for hypocritical behavior are most laid out by less tolerant nonbelievers who presuppose religion to be the root of all evil. This presupposition-led misunderstanding usually drives nonbelievers further into disbelief, fortifying their position that whatever God Christians claim to believe in must not be real enough to make them more Christ-like.

FRUITS & SELF-DENIAL HELP WITH DISCERNMENT

This relatable yet misguided claim lacks a fundamental understanding of the underlying biblical teachings about the fruits of a believer’s faith walk. These “fruits,” all nine of them, are key to distinguishing a true Christian, from a so-called Christian. The hypocrisy argument by nonbelievers also makes clear that they completely overlook the importance of Jesus’ command for Christians to first deny themselves before trying to pick up our cross and follow Him.

HYPOCRITICAL CHRISTIANITY ISN’T AUTHENTIC CHRISTIANITY

Many a Christian will try to follow Jesus without denying himself or herself first. But if we are to pick up our cross and follow Jesus, we cannot bypass this first command. How can a person be authentic in their journey following Christ while they’re carrying things that are forbidden where He is going? Spoiler alert—they cannot. And to try to would not only make their Christian walk inauthentic, it would also be hypocritical to profess faith in Jesus while truly believing in and desiring to continue carrying sins they refuse to let go of.

SUCH A CLAIM IS ITSELF HYPOCRITICAL

But, let’s pull back a moment to be clear on what is being defended here. What can a nonbeliever’s argument for the hypocrisy of Christians truly say when it lacks the understanding of Jesus’ command to do something they have little or no practice in discerning whether or not a Christian is even doing? In other words, if a nonbeliever doesn’t believe in Jesus’ teachings and chooses not to adhere to them, how can that person genuinely critique a Christian for the way they walk if they don’t understand the walk, themselves? In fact, that kind of criticism seems a little hypocritical, itself. 

This just roundabouts to the point that Christianity is misunderstood by many to be something it’s not. Christian hypocrisy is just one argument made in this direction. So let’s take a look at the flaws of this argument to better understand how claims for “hypocritical Christians” do not make a legitimate case arguing that Christianity is a sham, that its God isn’t real, or that there aren’t any true Christians, which is what many nonbelievers stand by when it comes to its deepest misunderstandings of Christianity as a whole.

Let’s start with Christian fruit and finish with what denying ourselves looks like.

“BY THEIR FRUITS YOU SHALL KNOW THEM”

Fruits are inevitable in the Christian life once we are spiritually reborn. These fruits become more and more evident as the believer matures in their faith. And spiritual maturity takes time, just like any form of maturity does when it’s real. As we grow in our faith, we gradually shed the misunderstandings that we are in control or that life is all about us, and we learn that the main purpose of this life is to know God intimately—glorifying Him in everything we do, say, and think. Jesus flawlessly lived out this purpose during His human life for 33 years. He did exactly what none of us could ever do, and by doing so, He impacted the world in ways no one else ever has, nor ever will, for all history.

Jesus not only displayed the fruits of the spirit masterfully and organically, but even more worth noting here, is He taught that we must look for these very fruits in others as evidence of the veracity of their faith. “A good tree cannot produce bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot produce good fruit.” (Matthew 7:18)

But how do we know what good fruit looks like apart from bad fruit? The good fruits are explicitly laid out in Galatians 5:22-23:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.”

STRIVING FOR CHRIST-LIKENESS

Notice, niceness isn’t a fruit of the spirit. Nor is people-pleasing or being politically correct according to radicals who believe their beliefs about themselves need to be everyone else’s beliefs about them as well. In other words, Jesus didn’t try (nor worry about trying) to make everyone happy. He only spoke the truth on behalf of His Father, and He ultimately said things that caused people to hate Him. As Christians, we are going to do the same thing because we strive to reflect Christ’s teachings and demeanor in every area of our lives. While we won’t be claiming to be God, we will be claiming to believe in the man who was “God in the flesh.” That means Christianity, on a basic level, looks like the enactment of a person who believes in the biblical ways God commands us to live. And in order to live this way, we must practice and master denying ourselves.

THE DEVIL HATES IMAGE-BEARERS, BUT CHRISTIANS EVEN MORE

Christianity is not a religion to join like becoming a member of a club; it’s a lifestyle one can only adhere to once genuinely introspecting the reality of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection, and understanding how God’s work through Jesus directly involves our lives today, as well as our eternity later.

One thing a Christ-follower cannot do when we evangelize is “sell” Christianity as though life is enhanced in some way when we are spiritually reborn. Life isn’t easier as a disciple of Christ, it’s actually much more challenging. For one, we are attacked spiritually because the Devil hates image-bearers of the one true God, and more so the followers of His Son, Jesus. But in addition to that, the reality is that Christians must deny themselves in order to be a Christ-follower, and that is difficult to say the least. But deny ourselves how? We’ll get to that.

OUR REVERENTIAL FEAR OF GOD MATTERS MORE THAN RITUALS

But first, let’s understand the fact that the Christian walk doesn’t begin when we finally go to church, or when we open our Bible; rather, the walk begins once we truly understand what it is we are saying no to, or goodbye to, when we say yes to Jesus. If we miss this, we will not be able to grasp the essence of what it means to be Christian and not just “religiously organized.”

God doesn’t care if we have all our geese in order if we do not do everything out of fear and love for Him. In fact, as Paul explains, if we do anything, but without love, we are merely a noisy gong (1 Corinthians 13). And without mercy, any sacrifice we make religiously but obligatorily means nothing to God. Without a fear of God, we won’t place faith in Him, and without faith, we cannot please Him (Hebrews 11:6).

CONVICTED TO RADICALLY CHANGE

In order to comprehend the purpose Christ has for us, we have to look at how He calls us to live our lives by reading His instructions in Scripture. To deny ourselves, we have to understand that there are things the Kingdom of God doesn’t tolerate that our carnal, corporeal world advertises shamelessly. Once we spend time reflecting on and specifying the areas of our lives that hinder intimacy with God, we are convicted to take radical steps to remove those obstacles by cutting them off at the root. Like Jesus telling us to “gouge out our eye”, or “cut off our hand” (Mark 9:43-47) to avoid having our entire body tossed into hell, we must rid our lives of whatever is causing distance between us and God, immediately.

KNOWING GOD’S WILL, AND READING HIS WORD

This isn’t something to overlook or to gloss over. This has life and death consequences, spiritually. Consider Lot’s wife, who turned to salt after turning back to the city of Sodom when God had explicitly commanded them not to before He destroyed it. Unlike Lot’s wife, we must not turn back to our lives of sin when we accept Jesus as Lord over our lives. When a fellow Christian or pastor says we must deny ourselves, they literally mean we must deny what we want in order to choose what God wants, and in order to know what God wants in and through us, we must know His Word.

MEDITATING ON HIS WORD REQUIRES US TO READ IT FREQUENTLY

King David even writes on this very idea, essentially implying that his biblical awareness was so intensive and committed that he actually meditated on God’s Word apart from reading it directly (Psalms 63:6). In order to have Scripture to meditate on (or chew on over and over, mentally), we must be ingesting enough Scripture daily that our minds are constantly reminded of it apart from our reading time.

Reading God’s Word helps us understand what becoming a Christian really means, and it contradicts a lifestyle of being half-hearted about God. Being half-in and half-out completely misses the critical nature of denying ourselves in order to follow Jesus completely. Jesus doesn’t accept partiality. He explains this very candidly in Revelation 3:15-16, which reads:

“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm—neither hot nor cold—I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

NOT FIT FOR THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN

In Matthew, Jesus even tells a man that a person who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is unfit for the Kingdom (Luke 9:62). This is because that requires the person to try to serve two masters (spiritually), which He later states is impossible to do (Matthew 6:24). We cannot serve two masters. We cannot be a Christian and also accept worldliness in ourselves. It’s impossible. We either make denying ourselves a daily practice, or we will not be fit to enter the Kingdom of God. We either hate our sin, or our love for our sin will be apparent in our hearts. Jesus said it is what comes out of us that will defile us (Mark 7:14-15), revealing that if our true heart isn’t for Him, it is for the self.

OUR LIFESTYLE CHOICES HERE HAVE ETERNAL REPERCUSSIONS

As Christ-followers, we either view lifestyle changes as relevant and necessary, or we view God’s Kingdom as a foreign place we never had interest in taking part in to begin with. The type of people who think of God’s Kingdom in the latter way are, in the end, thrown into the outer darkness where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12). There is no toleration for any sin in Heaven, and how we live our lives here is a direct reflection of the way we intend to live there. To confess our sin to God, and to make necessary changes in order to live out repentance and strive for a more righteous life is what Jesus commands of every follower. While we will never attain perfection here, we are to make progress and be sanctified over the course of our lives through daily submission to His will, the discipline of reading His Word, and seeking to know  Him personally.

MISUNDERSTANDING HIS WILL AND HIS HEART

Christianity isn’t a “get out of hell free” card. It’s only free if we follow through with what Jesus commands us to do. Only those who do God’s will are the only ones who will ever enter the Kingdom of God as His ‘brother’ or ‘sister’ (Matthew 12:50).

“Good” people who do “good” things but do not confess Jesus as Lord do not know God, and therefore they are not doing His will, but their own. His will is for us to know Him intimately and to live out that relationship privately and publicly, without compartmentalizing our faith walk apart from life with other people. In other words, to be a Christian cannot look like being a Christian in our bedroom but denying God and Christ in public; or vice versa.

He didn’t create us to give us away to the world and to evil; He designed us to need Him above all things. To deny that is the pinnacle of what it means to misunderstand not only God’s will, but His character and His heart.

DENYING OURSELVES DOWN TO THE THOUGHT-LEVEL

Denying ourselves means denying the parts of our lives that distance us from God’s presence. If what we’re doing, saying, or thinking resists God and His will, then we must deny it and seek Him instead. We are to take every thought captive and obey the commands of Christ (2 Corinthians 10:5), that we would be more like Him, pleasing the Lord and growing in relationship with God. Apart from this committed manner of living, the only thing we are denying is God, and not ourselves.

Denying ourselves goes as deep as the way we fantasize—whether we’re coveting (desiring) someone’s goods (for ourselves, selfishly), or someone’s wife (or husband), we are resisting God’s will—which is that we would be grateful for what we have, giving God all the glory, and obeying His will rather than our own.

HARMFUL TO OUR OBEDIENCE

Lots of us make excuses, claiming that what we’re doing isn’t harming anyone else. But if it’s harming our relationship with God, then it’s harming our ability to testify to God’s glory in our lives. Making an excuse that allows harm to our obedience to God in Christ only reveals that there is a trust issue between our choice to obey God, and our decision to live out (by faith) the belief that God isn’t enough of a reason for us to live morally righteous, holy lives. Read that again if you need to, it’s an important point.

GOD IS SO VERY GOOD AND GRACIOUS

By the way, all that I’m writing—I’m speaking to myself too. I’m not perfect, nor have I ever been. Obedience isn’t my strong suit and it’s something I have to work on daily. God knows I’ve failed repeatedly to do His will and not mine. But His mercy is astounding. His grace is abundant. His love is unfailing. He does not despise the contrite heart that desires a holy rendering. I keep these things in mind whenever I fall, because when I fall, sometimes I wonder just how Christian I am. Maybe that’s you, too. If it is, feel free to let me know by messaging me through my contact page. Or leave a comment below. I’ve love to hear from someone who reads these articles! I write with the hope that God is blessing someone (or many, preferably) out there who need Christian guidance and fellowship.

DON’T WAIT—TODAY IS THE DAY

I’m just like you, ladies and gentlemen: a sinner in need of my Savior in Christ. And without Jesus as Messiah in my life, I’d be hopeless! Don’t let that be you. Make today the day you decide to follow Christ as Lord, if you haven’t done so before. He is waiting, knocking at your door (spiritually). Don’t keep Him waiting… one day, it will be too late, and there won’t be a chance ever again. Let Jesus into your heart. I PROMISE you, He’s far more worth it than anything in this world combined. Jesus loves you unconditionally, and He wants to show you the way to live a life more satisfying and abundant than anything the world has to offer. This world is brutal and corrupt, but Jesus is loving, patient, and forgiving. Don’t waste any more of your time looking for purpose in this world, you won’t find it. Everything you need is found in Jesus as Lord. Turn from your sin; repent, and live in Christ.

Yeshua is the only way to God.

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