posers

I live in a neighborhood where there are lots of skateboarders. Unfortunately. Day in and day out, late into the evening, we often contend with dozens of adolescent boys doing various Tony Hawk wannabee gymnastics on our street and particularly next door to us.

These boys have their own uniform of sorts….knee length cut-offs and t-shirts sporting logos such as “Osiris” or “Acme”, and skateboarder shoes that are somewhat like tennis shoes only wider and, as I understand it, much more flexible for performing.

Now, besides the ones who actually do these testosterone-laden stunts, there are a few boys who show up with the right clothes, the newest boards, and the best shoes. They can even talk the lingo.....ollie, nollie, half-pipe, grind, etc. However, they are known as posers, guys who talk the talk, dress the part, but who are not the real thing.

Those of us who only observe from a distance do not know any better and assume they are all boarders. Sure, the posers will learn to balance on their boards and even skate around, but they do not really qualify as skateboarders. And, this is very important, those who are genuine boarders know the difference and secretly they make fun of those who only show up and “pose” with their boards.

One of the reasons that the Church today is so ineffective in much of our culture is that it is full of posers. I am not going so far as to say that they aren’t really Christians; only God is able to discern the human heart. But there are far too many people who profess Christianity, who have been through all the right Bible studies, can quote all the right verses, can sing all the right hymns and praise choruses, have attended all the right conferences, have jot and tittled themselves right into ineffectiveness, and have missed entirely the purposes for which we are called as believers.

But for what have we been called?

In John 13:35, Jesus tells us that “by this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.” Indeed, Jesus said that the two greatest commandments were to love the Lord your God with all your heart, strength, and mind and to love your neighbor as yourself.

The Pharisees did not understand this. To them, religion was all about a list of rules, about obeying men who had set themselves up as keepers of others' spirituality. It was not about a relationship with God, through Jesus. It was not about a relationship with other people. The Pharisees where posers, the ones who looked religious to the outside world but who did not know that being a believer was measured by God according to how to they treated other people.

Lord, today, help me to not be a poser. Help me to willingly set aside all the manmade rules and regulations that have governed my life, those weights that I carry that are not a part of who You are, and give me genuine love for others in both word and deed. Amen.