Recently I was watching a movie about a pair of teenagers living in an extremely conservative and old school village.

The town practiced polygyny -when a man can have multiple wives- and was ruled by one man, a so-called prophet.

Long story short, the prophet’s son loved the same girl the prophet claimed God choose for him. A lot of action, trauma and drama occurs and in the end the teens safely leave their hometown.

Before departing the mother says something about God to her daughter who responded saying she couldn’t believe in God anymore.

It was a fictional example but it is based in reality: many people reject God based off bad experiences with organized religion.

If you are one of those people or know some like that, I encourage you to turn back.

Not necessarily to organized religion, but to God. Still, at some point I’d encourage you to give church another chance.

An important thing to remember about dealing with self-proclaimed Christians who act the opposite: being Christian is a constant process.

That’s why people in church always say no one on earth whoever lived but Jesus was perfect. That’s why Romans 3:23 says, “for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.”

At some point or another every Christian sins. Most of us sin frequently.  It’s human nature. But that has nothing to do with you.

Being Christian isn’t about the group experience; it’s about having a personal relationship with God. Pray for Christians who act like they’ve never read the Bible based off their actions.

Don’t let others short comings or sins of others stop you from being a Christian.

Do you let the 1.24 million people killed in road traffic crashes keep you from getting in a car or another vehicle? No. So don’t let another person’s bad handling of their spiritual relationship stop you from dealing with God.

My second tidbit to remember is no church is perfect. One of my uncles refuses to go to church because of hypocrites in the church.

But like any other group of people, churches will have hypocrites, chain smokers, liars etc.

Like an ex-pastor of mine liked to say, “If you ever find the perfect church, don’t join it because it will no longer be perfect.”

You are going to deal with fake Christians. Expect it and deal with it. The Bible warns about these people. For example, the well known verse Matthew 7:13-14 says,

“Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”

I hate to say it, but consider a Christian who constantly seems to be obeying God’s word the exception not the rule.

Staying on your best behavior is hard, even when you really love the Lord.

Plus, some people think simply being a part of church makes them a Christian.

However sitting in church makes you a Christian as much as walking around in a suit of armor makes you a knight.

Falling to sin is easy. That’s why you don’t get into heaven based off your good deeds to bad deeds ratio. Like an ancient Chinese proverb says, “There’s no shame in falling, the shame is in not getting back up.”

God can forgive any sin except blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

Just remember organized religion isn’t a reflection of God.

So if you find yourself in church with hypocrites, don’t let that convince you that something is wrong with God’s word. It just means it hasn’t sunk in yet.