In light of the recent media frenzy surrounding Chick-Fil-A, i'd like to offer a word of warning to believers. Let us take care to not allow our good intentions to be corrupted by shallow faith or misplaced zeal. The Christian community bears the name of Christ, so when we fail to follow His example we end up doing more harm to the kingdom than good.

     Shallow or counterfeit faith is spreading through the church like a cancer by way of feel-good, post-modern, false doctrine and "I'm ok - You're ok" mentality. It is harmful in the same way that counterfeit currency undermines the financial stability of any government. It's simply worthless green paper if it's not authentic, unusable and disappointing to anyone who it comes in contact with. The same is true for counterfeit christians. They claim to bear the name Christ as a "christian," but beyond the name bear no resemblances to Him whatsoever. Such people consider themselves to be doing God a favor somehow by simply showing up for church every once in a while, or may count going to eat at Chick-Fil-A as meeting their quota for Godly service for the week. Such shallow and counterfeit faith is worthless and ineffectual to the work of growing the kingdom of God. These "Christians" testify to the world that their faith doesn't matter enough to be worth sharing, much less living out. Jesus, himself expresses his displeasure with such half-hearted christians in Revelation 3:16 "So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth."

     On the other hand, there is harm in allowing for zeal or passion over an issue to become misplaced. The apostle Peter demonstrated this characteristic by cutting off the ear of the guard at the time of Jesus' arrest. 1 Peter 5:8 warns us that our adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. His methods are sneaky and if we let down our guard, we will end up allowing him use our good intentions to tarnish the image of the church. We must remember that our goal is to reach lost souls with the truth of the Gospel, not impose morality onto them. If winning an argument against a lost person takes priority over demonstrating Christ's love, we've totally missed the point. When the world lashes out at us with lies and accusations that we are filled with hatred and intolerance, the worst thing we can do is prove them right by engaging in a heated fight which ultimately leads nowhere. The "knee-jerk" reaction to being attacked is to respond in the same manner, however the example set forth by Jesus is to simply proclaim the truth with love. Those who are opposed to us are the very same precious souls that we are called to reach for Christ. Ephesians 6:12 tells us that "we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against 

mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places." Therefore it is God's job to change hearts, our responsibility is to demonstrate his truth and love.

   Christians are right to stand up and speak out boldly for what we believe, and when a fellow christian is being persecuted, we should do all that we can to stand with them. The Christian Church would be much more effective if only there were more 

genuine christians who actually lived by the 

example that was set forth for us by Jesus Christ, who's name we bear. All too often however, the true message of Christianity gets lost in the scandalous whirlwind of media coverage, Facebook dueling comment debates and misinformation. May we not waste this opportunity to demonstrate TRUE Christianity with BOLDNESS and LOVE