I didn’t grow up in the Body of Christ. My mom took my brother and me to Sacred Heart Catholic Church on Sunday mornings for an hour. The rest of the week we went about our business with a wink at God and our eyes on the world. For the most part, my dad and my parents’ friends drank, cussed, and didn’t go to church, but they were honest, hard-working people who’d give you the shirt off their backs. I didn’t know what a mask was until I joined the Church.

Jesus said, The truth will set you free. John 8:32. Yet many professing Christians live in bondage by presenting themselves as something they’re not in the body of Christ. They look good, act good, get all dressed up for church, but the face they meet in the mirror every morning is not the face their church body knows. They are “double-minded people unstable in all they do,” James 1:8. The Bible says this double-mindedness is due to a loyalty divided between God and the world.
                                                                                           
When I was a child, I liked to walk on top of the fence. Wooden posts and rails stretched forever around my parent’s ranch house. My feet were small and fit nicely on the narrow boards, but I held my breath stepping over the posts six feet off the ground. Considering I was all of three feet tall at the time this proved a high-wire act. I enjoyed my fence excursions, but the ground set me free to be who I really was: a child created to run and jump and play on the grass. I couldn’t run and jump and play on that fence.

Unbelievers often accuse Christians of being hypocrites. Before I gave my life to Christ, I thought this, too. I remember a high school volleyball game, watching a group of Christian moms in the stands screaming at the refs and other team like angry fish wives. And these women sit sweetly in church on Sundays, I thought. What a bunch of hypocrites.

As the wife of a Christian schoolteacher, I’ve seen this played out time and time again. Christian parents on fire at their kids’ athletic events. Then I see these same people in church all but sleeping through worship. I really don’t think the heart of the issue is transparency. I think the heart of the issue is the human heart. “For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be” Matthew 6:21. I see more passion in Christians at their kids’ high school events than I see in these Christians in worship. The truth is they love their kids more than they love God. Some of them love high school sports more than they love God. It’s a heart issue, not an transparency issue. 

When someone really loves Jesus, you know it. God has that person’s heart and the rest of their life ripples that. At high school sporting events, they ripple Jesus. At church on Sundays, they ripple Jesus. And every morning in the mirror, they ripple Jesus. These are not perfect people. In fact, I know a man who loves Jesus who yells at his son’s soccer games. He paces around. He gets upset. But he’s transparent. I’ve also seen him pace around and get upset in ministry. This man is an open book. He gets upset because he’s passionate and he wants people to share his passion for Jesus.

I don’t think the real question today is: how transparent are you? The real question is: how much do you love Jesus?  

“I love those who love me, and those who seek me find me” Proverbs 8:17.