by Jon Finney

A friend of mine sent me a link to a popular Youtube video titled "Why I hate religion, but love Jesus" and its a pretty good video if you haven't already seen it. After watching that I saw a response video from an atheist which was titled  "I hate religion, and Jesus too. " His video was disturbing, no doubt, but not as disturbing as some of the comments people were writing. So many people who are claiming to be Christians were saying very non Christ like comments to him, then summing it up with "I'll be praying for you my friend."  I don't know about you, but before I was saved comments like that would drive me further away from the gospel.

I understand why people were posting the things that they did, because I found myself starting to get angry with this guy; I mean he's bashing my Jesus. The Lord spoke to me in that moment of my anger and reminded me of the things I used to think of him, the things I would say about him and how I was no better than the man in the video. I have no grounds to be angry at this man and neither does anyone else who's being led by the Spirit.

I looked through several pages of comments and found none that were encouraging. None that gave him a little taste of who Jesus really is. It was judgement after judgement all the way down.

Ghandi said "I like your Christ.  I do not  like your Christians." I think the word Christian can loose its meaning from time to time, so in my mind I try to say Christ like. That little word change for me goes a long way on how I think and react to people.

I decided to go back to the comments page and post a little encouragement and show that he is loved right where he stands. I never did hear from him but within a few hours I received comments from three other people thanking me for what I wrote. One was an unbeliever who said: "If more people said things like this Christians would'nt have such a bad reputation".

To sum this up I just want us all to be reminded that we are being watched by unbelievers. We don't need to put effort into being different as long as we stay in tune with the Lord.  The amazing Spirit and love of God will make our light shine so people will see a difference, even if we don't think we are being "Christian" enough.

I love all you guys and gals so very much!

Jon