I can hear it in your mind. “Oh, you’re a Christian.”
As if that simple statement were enough to sum up everything about me, to cast me into a stereotypical mold, put me in a box, and know exactly how I’ll respond in any given situation.
Sigh.
No simple statement is going to describe what it really means to be a Christian. I’m sure you know people who talk piously, go to church, and yet… act anything but what you’d expect from a Christian. I know people like that too. Some are Christians, some are not.
Many people think that Christianity is all about rules and regulations, things you have to do, things you can’t do. They think that if you follow it all, you’ll keep God happy enough with you that he’ll let you into heaven. As a society we’ve dulled Christianity to that level. But that’s not what it’s about at all. Yes, abiding by “the law”—all those rules—is good to do, but that’s not the point. Obedience is the result of being reconciled to God, not the cause. When you get right down to it, it’s all about your heart.
The Bible is a story of epic scope, a magnificent (true) story about creatures created to have fellowship with God, but who turned away. Rather than destroy his entire creation, God had a plan. He himself (as Jesus) came amongst us as a man, lived the righteous life that we could not, and then accepted the penalty for our desertion of God. With the penalty paid, God performs a miracle—when he looks at us, he sees the righteousness of Jesus.
Better yet, he doesn’t just leave us there. He doesn’t just pat us on the head and say, “That’s OK, you can’t help it, do whatever you want and I’ll just look the other way.” Hardly! Instead, he works in us, to change our lives and gradually make us more like him. Nobody ever achieves perfection in this life, but more and more true Christians should be reflecting the character of God, and less of man. Christians do good not to earn God’s favor (that is a done deal) but instead to please and bring glory to God.
If you’re not a Christian, you’re probably scratching your head right about now, wondering what in the world I’m talking about. So let me tell you a little bit about my own walk with God. Years ago I came out of the Mormon church, and believed in Jesus as my only way to put things right between me and God. First I had to set aside the Mormon faith; that left me confused and wondering about God. As I read the Bible, I began to understand what he was saying. I began to understand that I was not right with God; I could see that, left to my own devices, I would follow after the world’s idea of right living, a way of life very much in opposition to God’s way. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what was right; I knew it, but I wanted to do wrong anyway.
But God changed all that. I believed that the only way to get right with God was to believe that Jesus died for me. He took the wretched, rotten heart of mine and started to change it. Not all at once, oh no. But as I look back at the person I was, at the person I was becoming, the path I was on… I can see a sharp turn in that path. I was set on a new path, going in a different direction. God has done amazing things… providing for immediate physical needs on occasion, but always, always working on my heart.
Am I perfect? Not even close. Do I screw up? Regularly. Am I sorry when I do screw up? Absolutely. But God picks me up when I fall down, dusts me off, and says “do better next time!” Not with the stern voice of a disciplinarian, but with the encouraging voice of a father.
This is what it means to be a Christian: to walk with God, to rely on him for everything, to love him and glorify him. There is nowhere else to go for life.
