Saying and Doing

A few months back I was trying to enter a business arrangement with a small company where a friend worked. I thought things were going really well, but in the end, they fell apart. The owner of the company did some very strange things, including telling me after our first meeting that I was no longer permitted to speak to her directly and needed to carry things out through her assistant. She also strung me along, promising a presentation, assuring me that she was interested, etc. only to have a receptionist call me at the last minute and cancel the presentation for the employees and ask that I never set foot in their place of business again. I called another friend who had been approached by this same woman for web design and she assured me that she was treated in the same way. In fact, it seems that a lot of people have been treated badly by this woman - she had a tendency to approach people for things and when she couldn't aquire them for free, or if it might cause the IRS to question her business practices (which I assure you, were questionable) she would quickly turn into a nasty bitch.

Later, I saw on Facebook, a comment about this woman on the profile of the friend who worked there. This was the comment: "Ohhhhhh! You work for So-and-So?! She's wonderful and she looooooooves Jesus!"

So she loooooooooves Jesus, eh?

Give me a break.

A lot of people can say that. And maybe she does looooooooove Jesus. But loving Jesus and then treating people like they're vermin pretty much cancels out the 'loving' part.

I thought we were supposed to follow two great commandments? You know, I believe Jesus DID say the greatest commandment was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and strength" but then he added something. He said "Love your neighbor as yourself."

Go ahead. Love God all you want. But if you can't treat other human beings with the same love you've been shown - or if you're doing something that you know is wrong and in turn, it causes you to treat others poorly? - what good is loving God?

You know what the number one thing I heard that the world hates about 'Christians'? It isn't that we believe in unreasonable hocus-pocus, or that we turned a philosopher into a god - it's the attitude of self-righteous arrogance and hypocrisy that 'Christians' walk around with. It's pride. It's bigotry toward those who can't see the truth in the same way that they do.

Believers, we were not given an option on who to love. We don't get to choose to 'love' the people around us that we hold most dear. The people we were commanded to show love to are those that hate us, those who are our enemies, those who are not worthy of loving.

Don't walk around claiming to love Jesus if you haven't even figured out how to be nice to the poor girl at the cash register, or the harrassed server at the restaurant.

And for God's sake, take that damn Jesus fish off of your car.