He’s a nice guy. I see him almost every week, sometimes more than once. He’s extremely nice, he’s funny and he’s helpful and I like him! But he’s a hypocrite. I was a bit shocked when I found out, and I was brave and called him out on it. Most of us just get disappointed in the person or whoever they’re associated with and just decide to never trust them again (and perhaps lump their whole group as hypocrites), or more than likely just talk about them behind their back. But instead I expressed my shock to his face.
It was the produce guy at our grocery store. He really IS the best! But while chatting, he admitted that BEFORE he came to work that morning, he stopped at a DIFFERENT grocery store (one I KNOW isn’t as good as ours)…so I called him out on it and he just laughed, and will probably do it again.
But he’s not the only hypocrite around. I read an article the other day about a lady that had a surgery that unfortunately died afterwards, and THEN it was discovered her doctor was a hypocrite and didn’t even have the appropriate license to perform her surgery. And we’ve all heard of people that doctored their resume and didn’t graduate from the college they listed, or the hypocrites that claim they make charitable donations on their tax forms, and I have way too many friends who have had hypocritical spouses or parents or children and their families were ruined because one member was a hypocrite.
I once worked alongside two hypocrites in our payroll office that created an imaginary employee… And we’ve all heard the jokes about attorneys being hypocrites. For forty-five years I worked around straight-shooting, honorable ones. But the first one I worked for wasn’t. He “doctored” his bills and I knew I couldn’t continue working with an attorney that was a hypocrite. Years later, two hypocrites in my law firm brought down an entire company that had been in existence for fifty years because of hypocritical practices.
So you see, hypocrisy can happen in any family, any company, any government or political party, and yes, unfortunately (what you expected me to be writing about…) any church or religion. Because every person at some stage in their life will have an EXCELLENT opportunity to either BECOME one or NOT. To CHOOSE to become immersed in truth and uprightness or center their life around pretense in an effort to get ahead through dishonorable means while always looking around their shoulder in fear of being caught.
So IF you notice one at church (or anywhere else), just be sure you’re not looking in the mirror when you see one and instead look away and back to God. Because He’s the only One we can confidently put on a pedestal with NO FEAR of ever being disappointed.
