About Christianity

when i was still a kid and was still very influenced by the others and taken easily by what i saw, as well as taking things at surface value, my father asked me a question.

he asked, 'if a father was a thief, and one day he realized his son became a thief too, would the father have any right to scold/punish the son?'

at that time i said, 'no'. the reason was simple. if a man did such a thing, he had no right to say others. but my father told me it was not the case. i cannot remember exactly what he said, word for word. but i can still remember the meaning of the words behind it. so let me rephrase it in my own way.

if a man committed a crime, he might have failed at being a law-abiding citizen. but if he did not correct his son who did the same things as him, then not only had he failed as a good citizen, but failed as a father.

you see, when he corrected the son, he was not standing on the grounds of a citizen, but as a father. it was therefore his duty to correct him.

somehow, it seems like this gives me a reason not to do what i preach.

how many times have people accused you of not doing what you preach? a lot of times? a few times? for me, i cannot remember, but i know it was not a lot. most of the time, i admitted it myself. well afterall i know myself best.

among all the blog posts i have made and all the suggestions as well as the 'to-do-list' i have put up, i myself probably did less than 10% of them. am i supposed to be ashamed? probably. did i lose the right to continue this blog? definitely not.

reason number 1: this blog is mine. i post what i like.
reason number 2: me not doing what i preach does not mean what i preach is false. i mean if i ask you to eat fruits but i myself don't do it, does that mean fruits are bad for health? of course not.

what do i want to say? i only want to say although i may not do what i preach, you can still see what i am writing and see and pray for yourself whether what i am saying is true. i am not forcing my ideas on you, neither am i saying it is definitely right. i stand ready for correction.

but i have to say that today i made this post not because someone accused me of being a hypocrite. i just felt like making it. oh well... maybe it is just my conscience or the Holy Spirit telling me that i should wake up and start doing what i know.

you know sometimes we made a mistake in life, and when we see others making the same mistake we were told that we did not have the right to talk about another person when we ourselves had done it, or sometimes we told that to ourselves or others. in that case, what would you do?

from here i take it as that you knew that you were wrong in the past when you made that mistake and your concern now is for the person in front of you, making the very same mistake. i am not referring to those hypocrites who judges others while not knowing they were doing the same thing.

i think, if you care for the person, you should say it and correct him. because you are correcting him as a father/friend/teacher...etc and not on the grounds of a stranger on the streets. maybe we would get scolded. but having made the same mistake yourself, would you want to see the person you care for suffer the same consequences as you?

we cannot deceive ourselves and think nothing bad would happen. as long as one plays with fire, he is going to burn himself. we cannot hope that one day he will be able to control fire freely like some anime/manga character. the only way to stop him from being burnt is to stop before he is burnt.

no matter what the reason, if it is genuine care and concern, and love for a person, go forth and correct the person. precisely because you have made the same mistake and suffered the consequences, there is nobody better than you to correct him.

i state again, your mentality must be that of a person who wishes for the best of another person, and not that of a self-righteous hypocrite who only knows how to judge others.