The Sharing Series: On Prejudices as Christians

From this post onwards, there will be a series of blog posts/articles that would be re-publications of some Facebook posts and other sharing that are mostly based on the Scripture. The following is one of my earliest, if not the earliest, Christian writings.
___________________________________________________________
May 3, 2013 at 4:08 am

In this middle of the night that gradually approaching dawn, I was compelled to write this.

"Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement." -John 7:24 (ESV)

"Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you." -Matthew 7:1-2 (ESV)

What led me to the above verses was one simple word-stereotypes, or being judgmental in an unfairly manner. Day in and day out, we constantly (or maybe occasionally) face non-believers having perceptions that Christians are "holier than thou", "arrogant", "hypocritical" and many more. But the truth is that, we all are human, we all are sinners and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). But does that provide us a justification that we can live complacently in those perceptions? I don't think so. Instead, we should resort to grace as our teacher to thwart away from ungodliness (Titus 2:11-12), and ultimately, we should be more like Christ. We ourselves shouldn't be over-judgmental to anyone, but rebuke wrongdoings in a reasonable manner, like how it is stated in Leviticus 19:17, "You shall not hate your brother in your heart, but you shall reason frankly with your neighbor, lest you incur sin because of him." (ESV)

Still, ultimately, when we call ourselves as Christians, there will be a certain expectations out there: that you will act Christ-like, like how Gandhi once said, "I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. They are so unlike your Christ." What we can do is to allow God to take full control in our lives; let the Holy Spirit guide us away from evil; and be a disciple of Jesus that really FOLLOWS him. Don't take the task of living up to reverse stereotypes too harshly, but pray (for) and do what is necessary to do.

Lord, I pray that non-believers will understand that, at the end of the day, we are all imperfect humans, but through You we can be made whole and complete. So let us be more like You, and let us love You, as well as love others as how we should: love our neighbours as how we love ourselves. In that sense, we'll be living testimony of the love of God, and able to be the salt and light of this world. Let us be amiable people, just as how Jesus is. Let us be kind, just as how Jesus relentlessly is. May you teach us to love and be kind, and to be more like You. Amen.

_______________________________________________________

Additional thoughts: To add on to what I have written, I thought of the exhortation that we are the "light of the world" and that we have to let our light "shine before men, that they may see your good works" (Matthew 5:14-16). We, living as Christians, would always be subjected to being in a different limelight than others. But as mentioned above, let us allow ourselves to be subjected to Christ and the workings of the Holy Spirit to transform us more and more into the image of Christ (Romans 8:29, 2 Corinthians 3:18).