On my recent trip to Florida, I hurriedly rounded the aisle in Target, my daughter-in-law and grandbaby waiting for me in the car. An agitated, middle-aged man was talking on his cell phone. “I’m so sick of Christians,” he said. “In all my years in the business world, no one has stabbed me in the back more and been more crooked than they have.” I continued pushing my shopping cart away from the man who wasn’t through giving us a tongue-lashing. I wanted to linger, to tell him that I was sorry and to say that we all aren’t like that. Then again, maybe too many of us are. I certainly have my moments. Fewer, the older I get, but there still are times I don’t represent Jesus Christ very well. Jesus spoke of his “followers” who failed to embody the fruits of the spirit as listed in Galatians 5:22-23: love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. These people pretend well and are referred in Scripture as “lukewarm” Christians. Francis Chan spends a chapter in his best-seller Crazy Love describing behaviors of people in this category. Following is a short list of his descriptions. These people:

give money to charity and the church…as long as it doesn’t impinge on their standard of living care more about what others think of them than what God thinks of them don’t want to be saved from their sin but only from the penalty of their sin fail to share their faith for fear of being rejected gauge their morality by how they compare to the secular world have a hard time loving anyone other than those who love them back or don’t disappoint them

Here in Mexico, I have befriended Jessie, a sweet, young woman who is studying to be a missionary. A few weeks ago, she called me and said that her team of missionaries was at the beach near our condominium, and she wanted to talk. When I picked her up a few minutes later, she was wearing her swimsuit with a cover-up and shorts. I could tell immediately she was struggling with something. I was not prepared for what she had to share.

“I gave all my clothes away last night,” she began.

“All? And how would you define ‘all’ your clothes?” I asked. Apparently, all meant all, except for what she had on. At base camp the previous night, the discussion had been about our idols and what we love more than God. Two girls shaved their heads because they found that their hair determined much of their self-worth. Jess prayed about it and realized that she loved her clothes far too much, so she gave them away. “Well, honey, you can’t go to your classes this week in the outfit you’re wearing now,” I reminded her. She knew that, and within a few hours, I drove her back to her base, finding my closet now barer than when Jess arrived. Somehow, not surprisingly, her sacrifice had become mine as well. I had to laugh. The first commandment states that we are to have no god before God, yet lukewarm Christians do just that. Anything we don’t want to do without has the potential to be the one thing we probably should do without, if we want to grow in our faith. If the “Christians” with which the man in Target worked had put God before the idol of their business transactions, his conversation about them might have been radically different. We all must understand that we have the potential to be the person(s) about whom he was talking.