Hear, Say, Do....

I have noticed recently, a tendency which we all seem to have to some degree, to hear something explained to us, repeat that something in a slightly different way and then act on that something in a different way again.  Let me explain.....

An immediately obvious example of this is love.  We hear it said that we should love everyone!  Jesus taught it, it is taught from the pulpit of churches today and you even hear it said in other places too.

Let all that you do be done in Love.  1 Corinthians 16:14

So we are taught to love others.  Then when it comes to us talking about loving people, there seems to be a hesitation and at times a refusal to love certain people.  "I love people but I definitely couldn't love so and so...."  You hear it said all the time don't you.  How can you love terrorists, or murderers?  How can you love cheats and liars?  How can you love people who disagree with you or fight against your beliefs?  When we talk about love however, there is a generally sense that we do love people, even if it is just the our nearest and dearest and perhaps even anyone who hasn't 'wronged' us yet!

But then we look at the way we act.  Does the way in which we act towards people show love?  Does losing our temper with or refusing to listen to the people closest to us show love?  Does getting ratty with the people walking really slowly down the high street that we are stuck behind show love?  Does getting cross because the car in front of us is in our way show love?  Does crossing over to the other side of the road when we see people we don't like the look of show love?

On the whole, in today's society there is a generally sense that everyone just puts themselves first.  I think this, I want to do that, I want to be there, I should be first....  We know we should love others, we say we love some people, we act in a way which only shows love for ourselves.

Other examples include forgiveness-  We are taught to 'forgive others as Christ have forgiven us.'  We say that we forgive people, except if they have done something really bad or they have specifically wronged us or one of our family.  Then we often treat people as if we haven't forgiven them, we hold grudges or are 'off' with people.  Often this is something which works out over time, but is this because we have forgotten the hurt or have we actually forgiven them?

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will the Father forgive your trespasses.  Matthew 6:15

Faith-  We are taught to have absolute faith in Jesus, no questions asked.  Then we talk to people about our faith and it is often not overly convincing....  Do we have total faith, without a shadow of a doubt?  How about the way we act, when we are getting cross about our life not going where we want it to go or looking how we want it to look?  When bad stuff happens, when people get ill.  How do we show total and unwavering faith through whatever life throws in our direction?

Then we think about Christmas.  We celebrate Christmas because of Jesus.  Because Jesus was born to be our Saviour.  This is what we are taught, this is what we believe.  And then we talk about Christmas, and we talk about what presents we want and what food we want and when we are going to do all the things that we want to do.  When are we putting our tree up, do we have our advent calendars.....

For God so loved the world, that he gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.  John 3:16

Then it gets to Christmas- a day which is all about getting presents, giving presents, eating as much as we can and probably drinking a fair bit too.  Do we go out to church in the morning?  Do we have time?  How long will the service be?  What time will I get home for my lunch?  What about my family, they wont want to go to church....

We need to become more like the people we know we should be, more like the people we are taught to be and we need to talk in a way and act in a way which represents this to all those around us.