they are faking...

james 2:14 (ms) says, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? being a real CHRISTian isn’t just knowing, it is doing. and there are a lot of phony CHRISTians out there who don’t do anything.

there was a time in my life that i call my 3-year-jerk-time. i would tell my wife that i love her, oh at least once a week or month. everybody at church believed i was the perfect husband. i would say all of those right words that you say but i was never home. i never held her. for sure i never put her needs and interests before mine. i was a phony married person. i was a fake. i said one thing but did another and for a time in our marriage i lost margaret emotionally and i almost lost her all together.

so many marriages are like that. they both say the right things when everyone else is around but at home it’s a different story. their love for each other isn’t real, it is fake.

now i’ll be honest with you, as i look back on that guy that i was, i don’t like him. and for sure with what i know about him. there is no way that i would trust him or want what he had. he was a fake. he said one thing and lived another.

dan kimball in his book, they like jesus but not the church, told of a couple of youth pastors from a mega church who said that they would guess that three-fourths of graduating high school seniors leave their church as soon as they are free from their parents making them go. it seems like if what their parents had was real, they would want it too. oh i understand that isn’t always the case but for the most part it is.

i wonder why the younger generation doesn’t want to get married or become a CHRISTian. maybe they grew up with a lot of fakes.

a lot CHRISTians today say one thing but do another.

there are a lot of people who claim to be CHRISTians. george gallup says that 50 million americans say, "i'm born again." but you don't see anything in their lifestyle.

today we tend to label people as CHRISTians if they have the slightest sound of being a believer. folks, it's more than just talk that is involved in real faith.

JESUS said, "not everyone who says to me, 'LORD, LORD' is going to enter into the kingdom of heaven." not everyone with a CHRISTian bumper sticker is a believer. not everyone who is a professor of CHRISTianity is a possessor of CHRISTianity.

james says, can such faith save him? what value is this kind of faith? nothing. talk is cheap.

remember when larry flint, the publisher of hustler, said he was born again? but you never saw any change in his life. he kept right on printing pornography, no difference. no change.

james is saying that real faith is not just something you say. do you know anybody that claims to be a CHRISTian but you don't see any evidence in their life? that's a phony faith. real faith is not just something you say.

just some thoughts here on my front porch…