I had lunch yesterday with a friend who hasn’t decided to follow Jesus (yet). She started our conversation with a ten-minute rant about her culturally Christian neighbors who constantly talk about their faith, how Jesus is enough, all they need is to pray about some problem, but they’re “FINE.” She is not from here in the South, and sees the hypocrisy very clearly.

This is FAKE NEWS. We live in a world of real pain, disappointment, destruction, and death. To deny that, or diminish its reality is to be less than transparent or truthful with others who are watching us Christ-followers and lovers of God.

And they see right through it. Maria* was telling me the back-story on several people who said they were “fine.” But there was a cheating wife, depression, and addictions they didn’t want their spouse to know about. She told me of a couple who wouldn’t share a glass of wine with them over dinner in their home because “drinking is a sin,” but then Maria saw the husband later with a beer who said, “just don’t tell my wife.” Hypocrisy anyone?

To those who haven’t given their lives to Jesus yet, we are sending a message that is not true; we are communicating, “if you put your faith in Jesus then everything in your life will be good.” This is a false hope, is not helpful, and will eventually lead to an abandonment of any faith in Christ. Because it is a faith in a different god. It is not good news, it is fake news. Do Christians worry that Jesus will be less appealing if he doesn’t take all their problems away?

What we should be communicating is that Jesus is with us in our pain, our grief, our loss. That his presence is our hope and our comfort. That God himself hates death and everything that sin has brought into the world. That he died to pay for our sin so that we can have hope in a future that is free of death of all kinds.

As we spend time with unbelievers, we must be authentic. Please drop the platitudes. Stop with the trite comments. Just simply share your story. “I was lost but now I’m found,” doesn’t have to mean that everything is now okay. Everything is still hard and crappy in this lifetime but I have the presence of God to help me through it. He is just as sad about the death of my grandson as I am. He walks with me through depression. He feels the aches in my aging body like I do. He plans to make it all right again someday. Every tear will be wiped away. Every injustice made right. Every vengeance poured out on the perpetrators. No one will hurt or ache or die ever again.

Jesus made a point to call out the fakes, and in his time they were called Pharisees. They emphasized religious rule-following and taught that it was the way to righteousness. Jesus called them beautiful tombs, gorgeous at first glance, but inside full of death. Let’s not be modern-day Pharisees. I shared some verses from Matthew 23 with Maria and told her that Jesus hated hypocrisy, too. I hope she finds that facet of Jesus’ character appealing.

Authenticity is important to her, and all those who are seeking even if they don’t know it yet.

“Woe to you, self-righteous scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which look beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men’s bones and everything unclean. So you also, outwardly seem to be just, upright to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23:27-28, Amplified Version)

(*Maria is a pseudonym)