Ray Stedman once said this:

"No Christian has the right to a private life. Our lives are to be lived openly before all men, transparent, a spectacle unto all the world. We have no private lives and we must not expect to have. This is basically and fundamentally wrong. Christians are to be demonstrations of the truth."


Mattew 5:14-16:

"Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven."

When it comes to the issue of Christians falling into sin, so many people say, "Why did they have to put his/her business out in the street like that? It's between them and God, it's nobody else's business." Or even when we sin, we'll have an attitude that says, "My sins are between me and the Lord, only He can judge me."

True, only God is fully able to judge men, but that same God has called us to be the light of the world, and nothing about that light is meant to be covered or hidden. How can we expect our good deeds to be in full view of the public, yet expect our sins to be private??? That is not how it works, according to Luke 12:2-3:

"For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known. Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops."

So if you're a believer in Christ, I sincerely hope that you submit to what Jesus has taught us in the Scriptures concerning the exposure of our sin. Let's strive to live a life that puts the spotlight on Christ, before God has to put the spotlight on us.



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"My dear brothers, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.

Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like a man who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But the man who looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues to do this, not forgetting what he has heard, but doing it—he will be blessed in what he does.

If anyone considers himself religious and yet does not keep a tight rein on his tongue, he deceives himself and his religion is worthless. Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." - James 1:19-27(NIV)

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Excerpt from the movie The Autobiography of Jane Pittman:

"You've got some black men who will tell you that the white man's the worst thing on the earth. But let me tell you this: ALL men are the same. The same evil you see in whites, you see in blacks, and likewise, the good to be found is in all men, white and black.

THE ENEMY IS NOT SKIN...IT'S INGORANCE!! It was ignorance that put us here in the first place. Ignorance, because the big tribes of Africa warred against each other, or made slaves out the smaller tribes. Our own black people put us in pens like hogs, destroying entire civilizations with rum and beads. And it was still the African, this time the Arabs, who sold us on the block. The white man didn't need guns, because we were weak. The French, the Spanish, the Portuguese, they took us because...we were ignorant! We were apart from one another. You've got folks here saying, 'Let's go back to Africa, let's go back to Liberia.' Well, I am not African! I'm American, a black American and proud of it! Look inside yourself and say, 'What am I? What else besides this black skin?"

Do you know what a nigga is? First, a nigga feels below anything on the face of this earth. He doesn't care about himself. He doesn't care about anybody else. He doesn't care about anything. Now, he'll never be an American, and he'll never be a citizen of any other nation. But there's a big difference between a black American and a nigga. A black American cares, and he knows, and he struggles. That's why I'm telling you this. That's why I know no son or daughter or mine will ever be a nigga! I want my children to be black and proud of it.

This land, this America, belongs to us all. I don't mean that we own it, but that it's Gods, and that makes it as much ours as any man's. You are not bested by any man!

Be Americans, but first...be men."