"Shame Without"

"Thou makest us a strife unto our neighbors: and our enemies laugh among themselves." (Psalms 80:6) As sad as it might sound, it looks worse than we might think it does. We seldom realize how bad our appearance is, as if our mask is not something we can hide, even though we think it hides our true emotions. Sometimes the saddest looking people I see are those that claim to be Christians; it's like they hate life so much, they look like someone around them just farted. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's not okay to hate this world; but what I am saying, is that our focus needs to be placed on heaven, and we let that be the light that guides our emotions. If you doubt me, just try it! Put it into daily practice, and actually try to keep reminding yourself, 'I am going to Heaven, this is not my home!' So what if people laugh. When I first got saved, I had this saying among my fellow inmate brothers, that those guys that put on the hardest faces, were the ones that cried in their pillows at night; and so, I made every opportunity I could to witness to those kind of inmates. Did it go very well doing so? Not so much. But it really was not up to me to be the one who leads them in the sinner's prayer, my thing was to plant the seed, or maybe water a seed that had already been planted; it's the Holy Spirit that brings people to repentance, not us. There is one thing about being among people that are serving time for crimes they committed, they know that they have done wrong; no one needs to tell them that they are bad people, because they already know it to be so. Maybe that's why so many Christian wear the face that they do, they are constantly frowning at all the bad people around them, because they think that they are so good. Good or bad, people are always one prayer away from being one of our brothers or sisters; that's all it takes, one prayer spoken from the mouth of a sinner that believes in the cross of Christ, and they saved! What do you want to do today? Do you want to plant a seed? Maybe water a seed that has been planted? Or, do you want to sniff out farts? It's is totally up to us what we do with what we have been given. It is really easy to see the sin in others, but that's not what we are meant to be looking for; except maybe in those that are fellow believers. When it comes to dealing with the lost, we need to think restoration, not condemnation...
"I don't mean to say that I have already achieved these things or that I have already reached perfection. But I press on to possess that perfection for which Christ Jesus first possessed me. No, dear brothers and sisters, I have not achieved it, but I focus on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead, I press on to reach the end of the race and receive the heavenly prize for which God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us. Let all who are spiritually mature agree on these things. If you disagree on some point, I believe God will make it plain to you. But we must hold on to the progress we have already made." (Philippians 3:12-16) NLT