my hypocrisy

today is an historic moment. the united states is swearing in her new president. regardless of how you feel or what you believe, this is a moment to be proud of. congratulations president-elect Barack Obama on your well designed, well fought and gracefully won campaign. i pray that you will lead this country forward and that you will lean on God, not man, when you find yourself in great indecision.
with that said, this is a great oppourtunity to discuss hypocrisy: my hypocrisy.
during the campaign for president, both sides threw around words like stones at windows using names such as hypocrite to label their opponent and mar their reputation. and they are not alone. we throw our own stones, trying to judge others in an attempt to make ourselves look better. but Jesus quietly walks in as we madly rush about to pick up our stones and spin them wildly towards those we wish to judge and says: "...He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone..." (john 8:7) (kjv). time to put on the brakes.
hypocrisy defined: " a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not ; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion". do we feign to we believe something we do not?
we act outwardly offended when in a public situation someone says (insert swear word) in our general vicinity but when we are alone in our cars getting cut off by some crazy guy in a pickup truck; we'll use the same swear word ourselves very liberally, possibly even sprinkling in a "dear Lord bless that man" to remain "holy". (editor's note: this situation was pulled directly from the author's life experiences)
but i digress. or do i. either way you could call me hypocritical. i'll take the chance and continue.
romans 2:1 "No matter who you are, if you judge anyone, you have no excuse. When you judge another person, you condemn yourself, since you, the judge, do the same things." (gwt). there's the zinger right there. right in the kisser. a straight upper cut to the jaw. a... anyway, if the do not throw stones part didn't stop us, this should. am i abdicating a lawless society or that we should fire court judges? no. i'm talking about our condition as little Christs. or more specifically, my condition.
i tend to judge, to throw stones, to label others as hypocrites when i am just as much a hypocrite myself. i am guilty of this and more and i hope that you and i can recognize where we need the reconditioning before we try to recondition others.
as we welcome a new president, it's not time to point out all his faults or make rush judgements about his character. it is, however, time to do to others what we would want them to do to us.