Only God can judge me?

I've been thinking about some things after having a conversation with a friend of mine which raised some important issues. I wont go over everything that was said, but it basically brought home to me how important the way you live is in terms of providing a living testimony to others.

As Christians, a lot of us allow ourselves little indulgences that we think are "no biggie" as long as we confess and seek forgiveness later on, or because our transgressions are not as bad as that person in the choir or that musician at such and such a church, or because maybe noone knows about it.

But whether noone knows about it or not, my question is why do we set ourselves standards of holiness that are lower than the standards unsaved people in the world would set for us? If someone who is unsaved can identify our behaviour as below par, why can we not see. Or do we choose not to see because in reality we have compromised our Christianity in some way?

I have a friend who does not think much of Christians or Christianity partly because he sees a difference in the behaviours family members exhibit in the home and when out in Christian circles.

I know someone whose Christian family members have condoned. encouraged and even assisted another family member in finding another - an additional - wife, and thereby entering into a polygamous relationship - because of the perceived shortcomings of the first wife.

I know people whose Christian family members have issues about them entering a relationship/marriage with someone who is from a different race or culture, when we are all supposed to be equal in God's sight.

It goes on, and if we look at our lives there are probably values and prejudices and behaviours that we have allowed to remain part of us because it is comfortable, or because we care too much what our communities think, or because.....we just don't want to let go.

And without realising it we probably turn off the non-Christians who are closest to us, because they know our deeds better than most.

I'm not excluding myself from this examination either, because it made me think about myself and my shortcomings too. And about how maybe if I had been living uprightly in the eyes of those around me my life could have been a living testimony, and that living testimony is a most powerful one.

The bible says in Matthew 5 verse 14:

"Ye are the light of the world. A city on that is set on an hill cannot be hid."

So then why is it so hard for non-Christians to identify a person that they would call a true Christian? If they, not knowing Christ, can identify in us that which is unholy, while we continue to profess blindness, what does that say about our Christianity?

And if something about us is getting in the way of non-Christians identifying us as children of God, should we be letting that thing go? This is a broader question in itself, and I will probably address it in another post.

But as far as our values and priorities are concerned, we must be Christians first, and black, white, brown, Asian, Nigerian, Caribbean, wealthy, poor, dreadlocked, university-educated, popular, unpopular last.

There are people out there who claim that they have no interest in Christ and in Christianity who really just have a problem with the "Christians" and "Christianity" that they see. In this dark age we can ill afford to put extra stumbling blocks in the way of their potential salvation.