Love and Controversy

I don't normally write twice in two days but I've been thinking about something a lot over the last few days so it's ended up here.

I think as Christians we can often sheg (flop/fall short/fail) in the area of love and criticism and not even realise. Hear me out.

In the past I once grew deeply upset by another believer who had made it their business to judge some next brothers who hadn't done something which the judgemental believer felt that they should have. They then had a massive judgemental rant about these brothers, whose actions had nothing much to do with them.

I felt that the judgemental/critical believer was being ultra hypocritical as I was very familiar with their shortcomings. I then became intensely angry about it. In the end I began ranting to other people about how hypocritical and judgemental that believer was and became as bad as them. The moment when I realised how I myself had gotten entangled in a bad situation was when I was praying with someone about something totally unrelated and then that person was used by the Lord to deal with the unspoken issues of my critical heart. I was told by the Lord to forgive and instead bless the critical person who I had begun to criticise. Peak init?

But the deep thing is that this is basic Christianity! "Love your neighbour", "Love your enemies", "pray for those who despitefully use/persecute you", "take the plank out of your own eye before the speck in your brothers'", "be careful he who thinks he stands lest he should fall", "patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self control" and so on.

I've been in the company of a large number of Christians who see or experience something negative in others, criticise them with people who they feel are sympathisers and yet never pray for the person/people. I myself have often been that guy and almost slipped into this today myself; hence the blog.

I'm seeing so much division, bitterness and criticism and so little prayer and love yet these are the basic tools of  someone who is truly saved. That's peak in a lot of ways. All I can say is thank God for His grace!

One example of this that really concerns me is the way that mandem are criticising the way that women are dressing and laying a load of blame on the sisters. There are of course sisters who, in my opinion (and that of my sister), dress innapropriately but so do loads of women these days so we've just gotta deal with it.

Then I'm seeing loads of sisters, who appear to have some serious pent up frustration about this issue, retaliating against these comments, often in an explosive and very public fashion. There is often truth to what is said but I'm just not so sure about the whole thing really. It just doesn't really sit well with me and let me point out that I have never made any comment against the way that Christian women dress in general.

In my opinion there are assumptions made on both sides here and why the heck are there two divided sides in the body of Christ anyway???


I personally think a lot of us are being played by the enemy and in our anger/outrage/defensiveness are making Christians look bad.

Having read some of the aforementioned brand of tweets, I found myself being defensive of the brothers today and feeling that some of the comments I'm seeing are a little bit out of line to be completely honest. Maybe I'm the one making assumptions now? (The lack of tone of voice on the internet is a big issue). My thinking towards some of the sisters was very negative at the time and the Lord simply reminded me of my own message. "But are you praying for them?". BOOM. Shut me right up... even though I wasn't speaking out loud lol.

Can we pray for discernment and not get punk'd by the enemy please?

I think I'm risking my neck a bit here as it seems there's an army of acid tongued women (and probably men too) awaiting me but hey Tasha always told me that I'm a "controversial Christian" and who's got time to live in fear? Not I.