Sometimes Christians get under my skin. Yes, I'm a Christian and, yes, I just typed that (and, yes, I have been known to get under my own skin and others'). When I was first married, I was directed to end all of my friendships with the opposite gender because it was dishonoring to my husband and gave a foothold to Satan. I was openly shamed by a family member for wearing a sundress that exposed my shoulders and told to cover up so I wouldn't tempt other men. And, forget that I was born and raised and lived in Las Vegas, going to any bars should be strictly prohibited because, well, that's just a HUGE no no...it supports and could lead to drunkenness.





When I had my first child, I felt pressured to breast feed, buy all organic everything, and center my entire life on peeling feces off of the latest and greatest Fuzzy Buns cloth diapers because somewhere along the line, I determined that's what being a good Christian mama looked like. Such sacrifice appropriately reflected that my husband and children really were my top priority. As my children grew older, homeschooling became my new to-do, otherwise I was failing them and my call to raise them in the Lord.





I was such a lost cause that I still failed some children. I was corrected by my church family often because I had (still have) a bad habit of caving in to my own childlike nature. I once centered a Sunday school message around toothpaste-stuffed Oreos to drive home the message to a group of middle-schoolers that temptation looks great until you find yourself in the middle of it...and they decided to share the leftovers with their high school sisters...innocent fun to us all at the time. But...





apparently, that was "bullying."





My reputation continued to precede me. Before going to summer camp the following year, I was targeted and individually pulled aside (by a brand-new youth pastor who had no experience with me personally) and warned that similar "bullying" behavior would not be tolerated, especially by volunteers.





I confess. In response, I bought a ton of prank fart packet contraband and secretly distributed it to the very grateful and equally precocious teen boys in my group.

I was fed up.

I guess I was a bully AND a rebel.





I was asked to take down a picture of me on Facebook on a cruise having margaritas with Mickey and used to feel so much shame when buying alcohol that I often resorted to hiding my chosen bottle of wine under anything and everything I could in my cart because what if someone found out I was having a drink?! I would be blacklisted forever!!





At least, that's how it felt. My appreciation for a good "That's what she said" joke would merely be the nail in my figurative coffin.





Here's the thing: honoring my marriage, helping others to avoid temptation and taking precautions to avoid it myself, giving the best of the best to my children, and being the best of the best example to others and their children are not wrong choices in and of themselves.





The motivation behind them, however, is what separates the fruit-bearers from the hypocrites.





Are we really being good ambassadors for Christ by placing so much emphasis on/directing others to change their outside appearances or behavior? Does the internal pressure to be better somehow make me more holy, more Christ-like? Is this all what Jesus intended when His death and resurrection "set us free" from the Law?





Paul shouts "Heck NAH" in the fifth chapter of his letter to the Galatians, mincing no words:





"Christ has freed us so that we may enjoy the benefits of freedom. Therefore, be firm in this freedom, and don’t become slaves again. ...Those of you who try to earn God’s approval by obeying his laws have been cut off from Christ. You have fallen out of God’s favor. ... faith causes us to wait eagerly for the confidence that comes with God’s approval. As far as our relationship to Christ Jesus is concerned, it doesn’t matter whether we are circumcised or not. But what matters is...





...a faith that expresses itself through love."





Translation:

Cleaning up the outside doesn't clean up the heart. God isn't looking for or working through good behavior, He works in and through surrendered hearts inspiring good behavior.









...Hang in there, peeps, we're not finished yet. Paul's message only gets more intense...





"Who stopped you from being influenced by the truth? The arguments of the person who is influencing you do not come from the one who is calling you. ...the one who is confusing you will suffer God’s judgment regardless of who he is. ...I wish those troublemakers would castrate themselves."





Yikes. Paul skipped the jugular and went straight for the balls.





When we skip over the heart and direct ourselves or others to look better or act better, we're only going skin-deep and cheapening the power of the Cross...muddling the very message, the Good News we're supposed to be sharing:





no one can/will ever be good enough, and

that's why Jesus died!





He HAD TO so the mess we're by nature going to continue to make is covered.... He didn't suffer so we would make ourselves and everyone else suffer; to support this lie that we can somehow cover up our own disasters by living up to some unspoken standard to be a "good Christian." According to Jesus Himself, that makes us nothing more than"white-washed tombs," like modern-day Pharisees:





“How horrible it will be for you, experts in Moses’ Teachings and Pharisees! You hypocrites! You are like whitewashed graves that look beautiful on the outside but inside are full of dead people’s bones and every kind of impurity. So on the outside you look as though you have God’s approval, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness (Matthew 23:27-28)." (Note: Jesus DID go for the jugular)





Christ overcame the eternal death we were sentenced to so we would be free "to serve each other through love," not fear. We should be motivated to do and be our best because we are genuinely humbled by His sacrifice and grateful for His gift, not because we think we have to or for the approval of others, especially His. The heart should be our only focus: for everything else flows from it (Proverbs 4:23).





Wagging fingers and up-turned noses won't win hearts (or stop me from typing "balls").





I'll be honest. For most of my adult life, I've been a hypocrite (my poor husband, children, friends, and mind). I've been more concerned with everyone finding out that I was a fraud than I was with being a fraud. And, as a result, I'm guilty of being critical and turning others off and away from Jesus. In a time where "living your truth" is being celebrated, I want to live THE Truth, firm in my freedom. Not as "an excuse for [my] corrupt nature to express itself," but to serve others from a place of equal standing and love, without criticism or attack, and with complete faith and trust in God alone to complete the work He began in us all <3





I want to bear fruit, not breed scabs.















