Keep your hands in your pockets (then you won’t be able to slap them)

“Keep your hands in your pockets (then you won’t be able to slap them)”
By Anita Mondragon
 
As most of you know, my dad was a Baptist preacher for over forty years, so I saw many things from behind the scenes.  Many of those things were the ‘dark side’ of professing Christians.  They were the smiling faces of Christ Himself on Sunday morning…but catch them after church was over, and you’d be looking down the roaring mouth of Satan ready to devour anything in his path!

Oh, they weren’t just in my dad’s church!  I’ve run into many of them in my years since!  They are in  every place of True worship!  See…the devil and his imps attend church on a regular basis.  I dare say they go more often than some of us!  No!  They aren’t there to listen, learn and repent…they are there to wreak havoc in the house of God!  They wait and watch and come to know who has forgotten about their deliverance.   ….Then they pounce on, and use that weakness to sow discord in the body of Christ.

 

Some are indeed demons, yet most are just disgruntled Christians that have lost their joy!  They have left their first love-Jesus, and the recollection of their first days of forgiveness through Salvation.  They have become rude, mean, crotchety, ill-tempered, self-centered, self-righteous, folks.  They attend church and give their tithe, but not with a joyful heart.  It is merely obligatory service to God, and a way to keep up their pretense of looking holy!

You know who they are!  They never want to help…but they always have something bad to say about the way things were done!  OR…they want a job and a title…but never show up on time to fulfill their duties; but God forbid some willing saint performs their task!  There will be hell to pay!  After all…THAT is their job!  They want the church to have programs and ministries…but they want to sit on their ‘blessed assurance’, and receive the benefits without doing any of the work!

I know…I sound like I’m on a soap box here, but I have endured these types of “Christians” all my life!  Is it hard for me to take it to the altar and pray for them?  If I’m truthful, I must answer, “Yes!  It is!”  I’d rather slap ’em to sleep, and then, wake them up and start all over again!  Truth be known, there are some of them that I’d like to knock the devil right out of!  

BUT…and that’s a big BUT…God says, we MUST love one another as He has loved us!  

I go back from time to time and recall my days before I found Jesus.  I don’t wallow in those times, but I do remind myself from where, and from what He brought me out of.  I was rude.  I was mean.  I was crotchety, ill-tempered, self-centered, and yes…even self-righteous.  I was saved at the age of seventeen, but because of bad choices, I went through many hard times in my life.  I lost my joy!  I couldn’t stand to be around myself…and many of my friends couldn’t stand me anymore either.  Had it not been for a few of my dear friends, and my daddy that continued to pray for me…and love me anyway, I may never have come back to the Lord and found my joy once again.  Which brings me to a verse in Proverbs 18:19 that says: “An offended brother is harder to reach than a fortified city, and quarrels are like the bars of a fortress.”  That simply means that we need to pray for, and love these folks back to Jesus.

When it’s all said and done…Jesus COMMANDED us to love one another!  So, here’s what we all must do….

Stop your gossip.  Take your judgments to the altar.  Begin to pray for yourself first…and then for them.  Look at your own life.  Lay down your stones.  Keep your hands in your pockets (then you won’t be able to slap them).  Fall to your knees!  Ask for forgiveness.  None of us are without sin!
 

 

 


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