The determining criteria....

of those who follow Christ is that we love each other. One of the most persistent and harshest observations against the bride of Christ tends to involve the word "hypocrite." I have always had the view that since we are all sinners then we are all, to a certain extent, hypocrites. Here of late, my view or definition of the term "hypocrite" has taken a different turn. Jesus states very clearly in Matthew 18, how His Father will treat us if we are not prone to forgive our brothers and sisters from the heart. Knowing how serious Jesus is about making good on His Word, it makes me reason how compelling our attitude of forgiveness, having compassion, patience, and sympathy as followers of Christ would be toward one another. When this is not the case, hypocrisy reigns. When people come into the midst of the body of Christ the determining criteria is decidedly not an attitude that clearly reflects how my sins are a speck, but my brother's sins are a plank. Now I see hypocrisy represented by a double standard for sins. There is the one standard for my sins and another standard for the sins of my brother. Guess which one is higher? Guess how attractive this message is to a lost world?