Why Christians Frustrate Me

I have a ton of Christian and nonChristian friends. I shall speak of the Christian ones. It is interesting because they are all different. Some are devout Christians who don't drink or party or smoke or anything. They are also the Christians that are hard to talk to and connect with. Then on the opposite end of the spectrum there are the Christian friends that drink, party, and do other acts that defiantly oppose some of the foundational aspects of the Bible. These people are approachable, but you cannot take them seriously since they say one thing, but do another.

I fall some where in the middle. I am conservative, but approachable.

What annoys me about the first end of the spectrum, is the fact that I feel like the happy go lucky Christians don't know what it is like to be me. I can't connect with them, because they are never willing to listen to me. If I mess up I feel like they will condemn me to hell and be done with it. Like they forget grace and mercy and trade it in for perfection and conformity to this prototype of the perfect Christian. It bothers me immensely, because I don't want the world to hear the word Christian and think of this.

Then the other end is the Sunday morning Christian who acts like Christ during the service, but gets caught doing sinful acts during the rest of the week. Now sin is sin. We ask forgiveness and God forgives. Then we don't do it again, but doing it over and over again defeats the purpose of forgiveness. They know nothing about God or the word of God apart from a couple verses and could probably name more alcoholic drinks than books of the Bible. I don't want the world to see this either.

Now, I know there are people thinking that the world should look at Christ. My objection to that is the world can't see Christ. So we are supposed to be His ambassadors. We are supposed to guide people towards him and let him do the rest. Sadly, we can't do this with a holy than though attitude or slumped from the sweet parties of last nights. So what are we to do?

Me? I'm a Christian, but I feel like on this spectrum I lean more on the side of the Sunday morning Christian. This is hard to admit, but God knows it is true. I know it is true. I just fail a lot. I try to be good, but recently I just feel like giving up and letting myself fall.

Sad. Ain't it.

Ultimately, my goal would to be strong in the faith, but approachable. Loving and kind, but not judgemental. Open to different people, but not different beliefs. Honestly, just more like Jesus. I mean Christian or non-Christian Jesus is a great role model. Loving, compassionate, self-sacrificing. I mean how can you hate that?