The guest preacher got up and announced that he was substituting for the pastor. He said it’s kind of like a pane in a window being broken out and you put a piece of cardboard in its place.
After service a dear old sister came up to him and said, “You were no substitute; you were a real pane.”
It’s time to get real! It’s time to get rid of the façade, the veneer and the pretense and get real!
One of the modern innovations of technology is known as virtual reality. Virtual reality makes it possible for you to feel as if you were actually there in a circumstance or situation. They can put you in an airplane cockpit and simulate the flight of an F16 or an F18. You get all of the sensations, all of the feelings, all of the emotions as if you were actually flying a jet airplane. It's not real, it's virtual, but you feel like it is real.
There are multitudes of people who have a virtual religion. It seems to be the real thing, they think it's the real thing, and sometimes they feel like it is the real thing, but it is virtual, it's not actual.
There are many religions in the world but there's only one Gospel. Man is incurably religious, you can go virtually anywhere on the earth, and you will find people going through the motions of some kind of religious experience.
There are so many people who only have a form of godliness. They have a name that lives but they're dead. Their religion is only an illusion.
Art Linkletter had a tragedy in his life, and it literally drove him to his knees. He told that after this tragedy, he was with some young people in the lobby of a hotel in San Francisco. He said they got down on their knees to pray, and he got down on his knees with them to pray. He said, "I looked around and I hoped no one would recognize me down on my knees." But he said, "I was not down on my knees but just a second when I no longer cared what anyone else thought." Art Linkletter said, "Up until that time, I was very self-sufficient, I didn't feel that I needed anybody."
Here's a man that for forty years on television and screen and stage had entertained millions. He said, "I didn't think I needed anybody. I thought of myself as being a good person, but I was a cardboard Christian."
He said it wasn’t real, it was all a facade. There was nothing real on the inside, but then he found reality.
Up until that time it only seemed real.
There's nothing worse than religion without reality. It ought to be real to you! It ought to be vibrant to you! You ought to have a know so, not a hope so or a maybe so salvation.
Too many Christians are like QUESTION MARKS when they ought to be EXCLAMATION POINTS.
Too many Christians are DOUBTING Christians when they ought to be SHOUTING Christians.
Too many Christians are only SEEMING Christians when they ought to be SINCERE Christians.
Where’s the reality?
James 2:18 b NKJV
18 Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
The old saying is, “the proof is in the pudding”. What do you have to show for your religion?
A kindergarten teacher gave her class a "show and tell" assignment. Each student was instructed to bring an object to share with the class that represented their religion.
The first student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Benjamin, and I am Jewish and this is a Star of David."
The second student got up in front of the class and said, "My name is Mary, and I'm a Catholic and this is a Rosary."
The third student got in up front of the class and said, "My name is Tommy, and I am Church of God, and this is a casserole."
What do you have to show for your religion, is it real? Don't be a cardboard Christian.
