It’s dawned on me recently that there are a lot of similarities between people having a false belief that they’re Christians and people having a false belief that they’re Patriots.

A lot of us are familiar with that scary Scripture in Matthew 7:21-23.

“‘Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father who is in heaven. Many will say to Me on that day [when I judge them], ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, and driven out demons in Your name,

and done many miracles in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them publicly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me [you are banished from My presence], you who act wickedly [disregarding My commands].’”
(Matthew 7:21-23, Amplified)

As a lot of us are familiar with this passage, these people are 1) absolutely convinced that they’re Christians and 2) seemingly shocked when the Lord Jesus tells them publicly that they’re not. He even explains why He doesn’t know them. They act wickedly (v. 23)

I’ve also noticed recently how a lot of the people who seem to have embraced authoritarianism and anti-Democratic ideas such as making it harder for people to vote are those who, not long ago, couldn‘t talk about how much they love the US Constitution.

But now they’re embracing concepts that are antithetical to the Constitution. Like those who Jesus rebukes for disregarding His commands, these folks wave around flags and extol the Constitution. They just don’t like what it SAYS.

A lot of people who identify as Bible-believing Christians have a stunning level of Biblical illiteracy. And there are some others who know what it says but pick and choose parts of it to hold sacred, like they’re picking from an a la carte menu.

And a lot of the so-called Patriots have no earthy idea what’s even IN the US Constitution. And others treasure certain parts of it, like the Second Amendment, but are pretty meh on the rest of it.

The obvious common threads here are hypocrisy and a complete lack of introspection.

People not even realizing in many cases that they are the exact opposite of what they advertise themselves as.

The worst aspect of hypocrisy is not that we could fool God (we can’t, God is not mocked, Galatians 6:7) or even that we can fool people (people who don’t claim to know God seem better at identifying hypocrisy than some who do).

The big danger is that we can fool ourselves.