Our identity as believers is in Christ. His name is the name we bear, we are marked by God with the Holy Spirit. (Ephesians 1:13). So when we label ourselves as a ‘hypocrite’ we are really speaking against our identity in Christ. We are sinners, everyone is. Everyone falls short of the glory of God. Even in Christ we are going to sin at times, that is our struggle as long as we are here. However, there is a difference between continuing to sin and living in sin. If we are truly walking with the Lord, we are growing to become more and more like Christ (the daily goal in the Christian life) we will still sin, but as we are growing and maturing in Christ it should be less and less not as someone who is still a slave to their sin nature. Just because we sin that doesn’t mean we are a hypocrite, because when we sin a true believer is going to go before the Lord with a repentant heart; we confess our sin with a sincere and contrite heart. (1 John 1:9) we don’t sin and stay there. Now, those who say they are believers, but knowingly and willingly walk in sin, they are however hypocrites (by definition) – they have no sorrow for their sin and live to satisfy their flesh. Their ultimate desire is not to become more like Christ, it is to satisfy their own desires. So, it could be that they don’t truly walk with the Lord. Unfortunately, there are these believers in the Church. That is why it is so important that as true believers we consider what our lives are reflecting – our social activities, our hobbies, the movies we watch, our speech, our attitudes etc. Have you ever met someone and noticed that there is a certain standard of character that they seem to live by just because of who they are? Who or what their family represents? You see it a lot in California. As sons/daughters of God, are we living in a way that reflects the standard of God’s character? Are we living in such away that reflects whose we are? Are we living in such a way that we know that hypocrite is not our name? Your entire identity is in a name. As a believer, it’s in the name of Jesus. That’s it. StraightUp!