Do People know? ( The Hard Look)

I remember in my mid teens before fully knowing Christ, hanging around the wrong crowd. Yep, Miss sweet Sam used to be a gangbanger. The friends I had before were not exactly friends parents would want their kids to hang around with. Thank you God for calling me and getting me out of that mess. I wonder where those old friends are today? Maybe they know Jesus? Maybe not?

I can recall one time sitting at the lunch table with all my gangbanger friends and this other girl who was not really my friend but was kind of like a "wannabe." You know what I mean? Anyway I remember my friends used to tell me that this girl always used to talk about me continuously behind my back. She would talk and talk and talk just to make herself seem like she's a bad butt. But then when she was in front of me, she wouldn't say anything! I was getting close to confronting her and saying something and possibly doing something? I remember my friends at the time would always try to egg me on to start a fight with this girl. I can remember one time at the lunch table she said something that made me give her a really hard look. Since, she didn't want to make herself look bad in front of the other people in the table, she ended up saying something. Then I said something back. Then the bell rang so we had to end the conversation.

This girl was all talk. I remember people would tell me that she would want to fight me. She actually was even smaller than me, or at least pretty close of what I can remember. But, that's besides the point.  Anyway, so I said bring it on. All, I remember next is the fight never happened with this girl. I guess sometimes people talk the talk but don't end up walking the walk.

I guess  the Lord made the story pop up in my mind so I can correlate it with the fact that if you say you're a Christian, do you walk the walk of being a Christian? Or are you afraid of what people will think of you for whatever reason? I have a few questions you can just ponder about if you are truly a Christian. First of all. Does being a Christian show in the way that I talk? Do they know I am a Christian by the way I act? Am I reading and studying the word of God to educate myself more of how the Lord wants me to live this life by his standings and with purpose?  The desired final outcome is so that others will not want to fight us, but will feel blessed by us and want to be our friends.


1 John 3:18 ESV

Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.

James 2:17 ESV

So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

Matthew 7:21-23 ESV

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’