OCTOBER-DECEMBER ISSUE: THE "THREE-HOUR" CHRISTIAN SYNDROME

In the political world, politicians rise up with good manifestos, convincing people to vote for them for change to be realized. Often times, people embrace their political ideologies and go out to polling stations  during elections  to cast their  votes in hope of having a change in the society. Guess what? Most of these politicians always fail to fulfill their campaigns promises. Under every regard, they often fail to live by their words.

Christians today are more and more becoming “political Christians”.  On every Sunday, you will see these folks who claim to be professing Christ flamboyantly dressed in their nicest apparels in church. They turn to be godly within the confines of the Church building which is mostly three hours, but they are different people all together when they move out of the assembly of the saints.  This is exactly what “three-hour’ Christian syndrome is about. Today, many Christians endorse or coax other people to engage in many unlawful acts.  We disregard or do not hold in high esteem the virtues we ought to hold fast as Christians (Galatians 5: 22; 2 Peter 1:4-7) We are forfeiting the pledge we made before God and men during the waters of baptism. We have forgotten to make the “the main thing, the main thing”. We don’t preach, neither do we support other brethren to preach the gospel message to the lost souls. We feel ashamed to tell the ‘sick’ world about the good news. We are closing our doors and, the business of Christ is left unattended to (Matt. 28:18-19; Mark 16; 15-16). We are losing our young men and women to the world. Marriages are been ruined in many Christian homes.  Our practice of the Christian faith system is crisis-based. We don’t pay close attention to our personal relationships to our Lord and Savior, Christ Jesus.  We only call on Him, when we are hard hit with the problems of this world. There is an increased desire among us for human glory. Christian fellowship (Acts 2: 42) is not a matter of importance to us today, we are more concerned about ourselves. We have misplaced our fellowship rules and limited it to people of our social class. Which must not be! (Galatians 3:28). Our bibles are nothing more than decoration artifacts. We decorate our living rooms with them. We shirk the responsibility to study with His Word and be approved off by Him (1 Timothy 2:15). As a matter of fact, we are going down the road of destruction.

Dear twenty-first century Christians, we have lost track of our call. We have fallen massively and have kept our Lord to open shame (Hebrews 6:6).  We keep drawing to God with our lips but our hearts are far away from Him (Mark 7:6-9; Matt. 15:8). Mark 7:6-9: “And He said to them, "Rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you hypocrites, as it is written: 'This people honors Me with their lips, But their heart is far away from Me.” I have coined this happening in the Lord’s Church as a syndrome (regular repeating signs of “Christian” sickness among us). We are gradually drifting away from what we resolved to do when we were baptized. Let this fact not escape our minds, Titus 2:7: “in all things show yourself to be an example of good deeds, with purity in doctrine, dignified,” But the question is, where is our examples of good works, folks? Are we putting on Christ daily if we are nothing different from scores of folks in the world, who do not profess Christ: the infidels, the atheist, the skeptic?  

All of our actions today boils down to hypocrisy. We are hypocritical in our ways. We pretend to be what we are not.  Matthew 23:25: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and of the dish, but inside they are full of robbery and self-indulgence”. We must start to clean the inside cup now. We must get ourselves right before. We cannot be hypocrites and at the same time faithful before the Lord.  A hypocrite does not hold in high esteem the things he profess to believe in. We must revive, stand up for the truth ( 1 Thessalonians . 5:21; Acts 17:11), and get right with God with the right attitude (Luke 10:27). We must quit being hypocrites by putting an end to the “three-hour” Christian syndrome and get busy focusing with true sincerity on the call of Christ.

 Happy New Year in advance. God bless you!

 Written By: 

Akola Mbey Denis

26-12-2018

contact: akoladenis97@gmail.com