Keep Your Behavior Excellent   

In 1 Peter 2:12, the apostle Peter tells us, “Keep your behavior excellent among the Gentiles, so that in the thing in which they slander you as evildoers, they may on account of your good deeds, as they observe them, glorify God in the day of visitation.” In other words, be careful because people are watching.

Perhaps you’ve heard the following story…

A woman pulls up to a red light behind one other car. She notices the driver of the car in front of her is talking on his cell phone and appears to be shuffling through some papers on the seat beside him. The light turns green, but the man doesn't notice. The woman waits, but the man doesn't notice the light change. The woman begins pounding on her steering wheel and yelling at the man to move. The man doesn't move. The woman is going ballistic inside her car, ranting and raving at the man, pounding on her steering wheel and dash.

The light turns yellow. The woman begins to blow the car horn and screams and curses at the man. The man hearing the commotion, looks up, sees the yellow light and accelerates through the intersection just as the light turns red. The woman is beside herself, screaming in frustration as she misses her chance to get through the intersection. As she is still in mid-rant she hears a tap on her window and looks up into the barrel of a gun held by a very serious-looking policeman.

The policeman tells her to shut off her engine while keeping both hands in sight. She complies, speechless at what is happening. After she shuts off the engine the policeman orders her to exit her car with her hands up. She gets out of the car and he orders her to turn and place her hands on the car. She turns, places her hands on the car roof, and is then quickly cuffed and hustled into the waiting patrol car. She is too bewildered by the chain of events to ask any questions. She is driven to the police station where she is fingerprinted, photographed, searched, booked and placed in a cell.

After a couple of hours a policeman approaches the cell and opens the door for her. She is escorted back to the booking desk where the original officer is waiting with her personal effects. He hands her the bag containing her things, and says, "I'm really sorry for this mistake. But you see, I pulled up behind your car while you were blowing your horn and cussing a blue streak at the person in the car in front of you. And then I noticed the "Choose Life" license plate holder and the "Follow Me to Sunday School" bumper sticker and the chrome plated Jesus fish emblem on the trunk, so naturally I assumed you had stolen the car."

Like it or not, people of the world notice our behavior, and as a result of such, they may often make judgments about the church and Christianity. Unfortunately, we are often going to fall short of being what we are striving to be. But may our goal each day be to live in such a way that people everywhere can see that Jesus really is living in us.