Dirty Church

Saints and sinners, huh?  Church is full of shined up, polished, masked people pretending they're good and righteous, right? Well, I'm a sinner and sometimes I'm not very shiny and often I wear a mask, but I love my church. I love that sometimes I can be real enough with people so they can see that. And sometimes, that might encourage others to be vulnerable and real so their neighbors can see.
But Christian, we miss a lot of dirty smelly people because we appear too perfect, too clean. Didn't Jesus sit down and eat with the roughnecks?  Do we embrace the lost, the ones who don't look like us? Do we shake their hand and run back to comfy? Actually, we're the ones who stinketh. In 2 Corinthians 2:15-16 we are
told that to the lost we are the aroma of death.
It all comes down to love. Are we really willing to love the lost and dying people who won't come inside our building? Can we love the smelly sinner? Do we show them a changed life?
I wrote this poem once about being real. Is this you?
Am I fake? Do I just appear this way when I'm not?
Is my mask covering it all up or can you see beneath?
Do you see "everything's ok" or did word get out that my life is a sham, stinks actually?
Or is my smile enough?
Things you don't know; would you laugh or pity?
The past you haven't heard about; would you turn your back?
Jesus knows it all and He died for me - loved me anyway, accepts me still.
Can you accept her, or him....them.....yourself?
Jesus does.

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