No One Can Serve Two Masters

So this was not intended to be my next post. I choose what order I post these in carefully, but after a conversation I had with a coworker yesterday I decided to talk about this.

While I was talking to this person she said that her friend stopped participating in a certain ministry because he seen some of the students involved in the ministry live 'double lives'. When I heard this I became very upset. The person in this story is not alone. I have heard many stories that end just like this.  This brought up several interesting points I decided to share.

The first point is that we never know what opportunities we might be missing, or causing others to miss by our actions. Take the above story for example. Had this student stayed connected to this ministry his or others that he might have come across could have been very different. Now since I know the student in the story, I'm confident in saying that he turned out alright. But the fact remains that we want to always want to be opening doors for the Kingdom of Heaven not closing them.

Which brings up my next point. Secret sin hurts people. Some people are fooled into this idea that sinning behind closed doors is okay. 'If nobody knows about it, then its not hurting anyone right?' Wrong. The first key point is that, sin always hurts God. It doesn't matter if not a human on earth knows about it. More importantly, sin is separation from God. Meaning that if you are wrapped up in sinning, its hard to stop because you are separating yourself from your lifeline of help.

To go off of this, double lives, have a way of becoming exposed. When a double life is exposed there usually has to be more sin involved, (lying etc) to minimize the amount of damage that it might cause. When, (I say when, because double lives come out eventually) this happens, it can be very hurtful to lots of people. It will destroy creditability in your life, and ruin any authority that your words once carried. People will feel betrayed and hurt.

It's not just the church, or friends and family that will be hurt. I asked a friend of mine one time, what his biggest problem with [Christians] was. He replied, 'They are fake. I can go to church with [someone] on Sunday and then go partying with them on Friday. This double life that this person was living, is hurting my friends view of Christians, and the church, and ultimately God himself.

Now please don't read this and hear my words saying that myself or that Christians are suppose to be sinless. But what I'm trying to get at here is that there is a lot at stake. As Christians we carry the responsibility of exampling Gods character. This is a hefty responsibility that needs to be taken seriously. It has great and even unknown consequences if we fail to do this. So if you are struggling with a double life, or secret sin. Go tell someone. Get accountability and pray daily for this to stop. If you know who this is their story, then be praying for this person. It might be a good idea to approach this person in a healthy and loving way, and offer help in bringing them back to living a righteous life.