I pray that my hypocritical tendencies don’t keep you from experiencing Jesus.

I’ve heard people say over the years that the reason they weren’t interested in church was because the people inside the church were just as messed up as those outside. I concur, we are. We definitely are.

It’s nothing new. Hypocritical Christians have been roaming the earth for thousands of years.

It was the apostle Paul that said in Romans 7:18:

“For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”

That’s hypocrisy — saying one thing and doing another.

I can relate to what Paul is saying. Maybe you can, too. Every day I start with good intentions. I have aspirations to be patient and kind, generous and encouraging, loving and forgiving. And then, before I know it (usually before lunch), I am impatient, rude, selfish, unsupportive, cold, and vindictive.

What a wretched man I am!

But, because of Jesus, I’m not a lost cause.

“Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)

I pray that my hypocritical tendencies don’t keep you from experiencing Jesus. Look to him — please don’t look at me.