At the start of the year, I decided to give up pop for a corporate fast with our church. I was so addicted to pop that this would not be easy! I NEEDED that Mountain Dew in the morning to get me going! I NEEDED that Moutain Dew after lunch to make it through the afternoon drive home and then I had to have another one while making dinner! Those were just the times of day I NEEDED one. I may have wanted one in between those times and indulged then too! I had a problem! Well anyways at first I couldn't wait for the 30 days to be up so I could have me some liquid-caffeine sweetness! But as it went on and February came up on me, I didn't need that pop anymore and by choice I decided to continue abstaining from soda! All soda, diet or not, has zero appeal to me! I replaced that mean green Mountain Dew in the morning with a Green Monster smoothie packed with the goodness of fruit and yes spinach too! (Don't knock it til you try it!) I posted on around Day 50 on Facebook that I had broken that mean pop addiction and if I could do it so could others!
For Spring Break, I got the kids a bottle of pop for them to drink and didn't have a slight inclination to have a drink myself. I took the kids to the movies and begging not to pay the high price for a drink there I told them we'd go get a drink afterwards. After the movies, Braums was the closest place and the kids both wanted a Cherry Limeade. I ordered 3 from the drive-thru without thinking a thing about it! I pulled up got my drinks stuck the straw in mine and enjoyed a nice Cherry Limeade! I had no thought that it was wrong and that it was against my rule of no pop. I wasn't trying to be a rebel! I went back to school after Spring Break and a student asked if I was able to stay away from soda over break and I proudly said "Yes, I did!" I still hadn't realized that I had drinken pop!
With Easter approaching, I've been thinking of Peter and how God said that Peter would betray him 3 times before the rooster crowed and Peter said there was no way that would ever happen! But when the rooster crowed, Peter realized he had indeed denied him 3 times! He then went and wept bitterly! I think Peter had an idea in his head what "denying Jesus" looked like and I don't think what he did was computing as denying Jesus even though it's quite obvious to everyone else that's what it is! I think all to often our own sins don't compute with us because we don't even see them as a sin until something happens and triggers us to really think about it.
Well today for some reason, I was thinking of that Cherry Limeade I had last week and it hit me like a ton of bricks that a Cherry Limeade has SODA in it! The very thing I've been avoiding and in a moment, I had ordered a soda, drank the soda, and later believed I was telling the truth when I had said I hadn't drank any pop! I lied and I didn't even know it! I would have never ordered a Sprite (the main ingredient in that Cherry Limeade) but because it's true idenity is hidden with a fruity name, I didn't recognize it for what it was. . .pop! I know most of you are thinking I am a complete idiot! I knew that I wouldn't drink any pop and I know what's in a cherry limeade but yet I got one, drank it and didn't even think it was against my rule of no pop. Dang, if that's not a definition of a hypocrite, I don't know what is! I really screwed up and didn't even realize it! I can't even try to think how Peter felt after he realized he had denied Jesus! Now instead of thinking Peter was kind of an idiot, as a fellow idiot, I sympathize with him.
My cherry limeade opened up my eyes to the fact that I may be doing some things I know are wrong but don't even realize that what I am doing is wrong. I may be lying to myself about some things and lying to others without even knowing it. So I am asking God to open my eyes to what those things are and see if I can change those things. It's a lot easier to see the "Christian Hypocrite" in others and not see it in ourselves.
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