It was just two years ago, my siblings, a friend of mine, and I were hanging out. As we were walking down to Improv Comedy Club, she took a moment to privately share with me how she went through a deep depression during her last year in college and started smoking.

“You did what?” I exclaimed, without letting her complete her sentence or even thinking about what might have caused her to do it to begin with. “That’s why I prefer not to tell you anything, you’re always judging me.” She replied. That was never my intent, but suddenly I realized I might have made it appear so by my reaction and my choice of words. I think that might have been one of the reasons why our friendship kind of dissolved.

In many churches, especially from my native country, God is superficially honored with the lips but not the hearts. Many lost count of the reasons and meanings behind the messages. Their lives don’t always reflect what has been discoursed. We’re building churches and principles to live by faster that we’re building people from the inside and out. Rather than jumping in teaching values, we jump into conclusions. We hold outsiders accountable the moment they step foot into the sanctuary. We refuse to simply accept them for who they are and expect them to immediately comply to our own standards. Our focus is making sure everyone knows and follows the laws literally to tradition more than they are applied to their lives and beyond the church parking lot, not knowing the true temple is their own body.

Building people is like building structures, we’ve got to start from the foundation not the roof. Yes we are required to fulfill religious obligations, especially since temptations have won over our hearts too many times. But it serves no great purpose to go through all that just to miss the point of the cross and the key component which is ensuring the people are applying what’s been taught to their own lives. It’s not just about memorizing verses they may not even understand, but rather about explaining the meanings behind them and why they need to be observed in the first place, especially when we ourselves know we’re nowhere near perfect. When we do all the right things, checkmark all the right boxes with an impure heart and the wrong motives, it only leads us to a cliff.

Romans 15:7 “Therefore accept each other just as Christ has accepted you so that God will be given glory.”