Looking Through the Window

I was watching a cartoon with my kids the other day about a bunch of forest animals that stumbled into suburbia. In their quest for food, they look through a window to see a family praying around the dinner table and are told “that is the altar where they worship the food.” Being animals that can’t actually talk, they couldn’t understand what the people were saying and were left to believe what they saw and were told. Really there would be no way for them to know the truth. It made me wonder, what would people see/believe looking through our “windows?” I don’t just mean literal windows either. If people watch our lives, but are given no instruction or explanation from someone who knows what is truly going on, what would they believe about us?

 

Matthew 5:13-15 New American Standard Bible 1995

“You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men.

“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house.

John 13:35 New American Standard Bible 1995

By this all men will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.

Philippians 2:14-16 New American Standard Bible 1995

Do all things without grumbling or disputing; so that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to glory because I did not run in vain nor toil in vain.

1 John 3:9-10 New American Standard Bible 1995

No one who is born of God practices sin, because His seed abides in him; and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.

 

Whether we like it or not, we are God’s representation to the world. If people know that we are Christians, they will watch us to know what God is like. Unfortunately, much of our lives they will see out of context. They may think Christians are rude and impatient because they saw a car with a fish bumper sticker and a driver with road rage, not knowing that someone had borrowed the car, or recently bought it. They might see someone whom they know goes to church with a tattoo of a foreign symbol and make assumptions not knowing that it was the result of a rebellious youth and they were recently saved, or possibly that the foreign symbol had some relevance to their faith. A friend of mine saw an expensive car with a license plate holder that said “my treasure’s in heaven” and assumed the person was a hypocrite, not knowing the person driving.

 

We are walking billboards for our faith. Most of the instances I just listed would be out of our control, but there are things we can do to make sure that people see us correctly.

 

1. We need to make sure that we are sharing the light of God’s truth with those around us and part of that is making sure we live according to the truth. Christianity is not something we do only on Sunday. We should live consistently throughout the week according to what God has said, making sure that we know what God says about how we should live.
2. We need to love others. This does not mean being a pushover, or accepting all religions as truth like some want to claim. It is referring to the way we treat people. We can still treat people with honor and respect even if we disagree with them. We can treat people as valuable and image bearers of God no matter their status, appearance or demeanor.
3. We need to have hearts of gratitude and unity. Complaining, causing conflicts and strife, and gossip are all huge stains on the life of a Christian. Complaining is ultimately showing dissatisfaction with God, and if we are dissatisfied with or distrust Him, why would anyone else want Him? Causing disunity and problems, not to mention gossip, are all childish, petty displays of behavior. We can be better than that, keeping our issues to ourselves or going to the proper authority to deal with them, finding out the truth rather than spreading lies, and working toward unity rather than tearing others down.
4. We need to seek righteousness and put off sin. The worst stench in the nostrils of unbelievers is a Christian who says people need to change and repent of their sins when that person is unwilling to deal with their own. The whole point of the Gospel is that Christ died to save us from sin, not so we would be free to go on sinning, but so that we would be free to obey Him. Jesus said that those who love Him will obey His commands. Continuing to live in sin is rejecting His sacrifice to save us from that sin.

 

Some things and perceptions we cannot control. People will judge us no matter what we do, but we need to make sure that they see correctly in the areas we can control. We need to make sure that we are living like Christ so that they see Him through us. This is not an exhaustive list by any means but it’s a good place to start.

 

Are you living like Christ? Which of these 4 do you struggle with the most? How can you change that? Ask God to reveal what you need to work on and how you can change.

 

The greatest single cause of atheism in the world today is Christians
Who acknowledge Jesus with their lips
And walk out the door
And deny him by their lifestyle
That is what an unbelieving world, simply finds unbelievable

~Brennan Manning