Tuesday, September 7, 2010

No More Surrogates

I saw a movie with Bruce Willis a few months back, called The Surrogate. A surrogate is someone who takes the place of another. It’s a substitute. We often hear the term for women who want to have babies but for some reason cannot, so they hire a surrogate. Someone who will take their place in carrying the baby for them. But anyway, I saw this movie and as I shared it with my church, it stuck with me especially as the Lord began to reveal some things to me.

In the movie, normal people, every day people, live their lives through surrogates. In this sort of virtual reality box, the surrogate goes to work for them, they play for them, they cook for them, and they even go on vacation for them. People totally live their lives through their surrogate. Except for Bruce Willis, who for whatever reason chooses to return to his “normality” when he gets home. But people are able to live through these surrogates through whatever form they want, you can have a black one, you can have a white one, you can be tall, short, beautiful (as society defines it), perfect body, with no flaws whatsoever (on the outside, anyway). But you can live pretty much as anybody you desire. You actually go to the store and shop for a surrogate.

And the surrogates that most people were living through (as I saw in the movie) were entirely opposite of who the actual person was. A heavy set older man lived his life as a beautiful young lady. Now of course, this is a whole OTHER topic that we won’t get into right now, but anyway, you get my point. Whoever you wanted to be, you were able to be through this surrogate. But it was a misrepresentation of who you actually were. You were fake. False. And nothing you claimed to be.

So of course first I thought about Christians. And some of you may dislike what I am going to say, but I have to say it. (Tell the truth and shame the devil!) Some of us are fake. Some of us misrepresent who we are. Some of us do an injustice to the One we say we serve. Christ. Which may very well explain why some unbelievers get a bad taste in their mouths about Christians.

Yes, I am talking about Christians. Those who profess to know Jesus Christ. Those who profess that they have confessed Him as Lord AND Savior, but live their lives doing what they want to do. So Jesus is Savior, but He is not really Lord. You want Him to save you but you don’t want Him telling you what to do. Christians.

Some of us are living our lives as a surrogate. On the outside we may sound like a Christian to an extent, until trouble comes our way, and squeezes out what’s really on the inside of us. What we really believe comes out and it does not quite line up with what we say we believe or better yet, WHO we say we believe in.

Then I thought about people on social networking sites, in particular, Facebook. There a lot of people who are living their lives as a surrogate. They’re not real. They profess or act like or talk like they are one way, but if you know them, if you’ve seen them in person, they’re not that way at all. Or vice versa, you see them one way or know them to be one way, but “over the internet” don’t seem that way at all. Who are you? You show people who you want them to think you are, but God knows who you really are and it’s time the two of you come face to face, so that the you, you really are can be delivered from the you, you say you are.

People are hiding behind surrogates. Pretending to be something they are not. Some of them are bullies, or so they think. They say things, post statuses that they would NEVER say in a person’s presence. They’re surrogates and that makes them, cowards. False.

It’s time out for that. It’s time out for pretense. It’s time to get it right. If you believe in Jesus, then act like you do. If you want to be a bully over the web, try and be one in person and see how far that will get you. Come out, come out whoever you are. Stop hiding. And stop playing virtual reality games. No more surrogates.

At the end of the movie the computer crashes and all the people have no choice but to come out of their “boxes” and live their own lives. And you should see them, because they’re like zombies. They have been living for so long pretending to be something that they’re not, that they don’t even know who they really are. Don’t let this happen to you.

God says time is short. He knows who you are. There are no surrogates with Him. He also knows Who He is and He knows who are His. We serve a real God, and we’ve got to be real. No more surrogate Christians. No more surrogates, period.

God is good and He’s real. And He’s really good. But you’ve got to know that He wants us right and He wants us real, too. Do it today while you have the chance.

A servant of the Lord,

Sis. E

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