Am I really a
Christian?
Last time I wrote on
this question, the main thrust was to remind ourselves that we must test
ourselves to see if we are “in” the faith. Our eternal destination is dependent
upon this answer. Personally, I find this to be the most important question
that I must be sure of, as I live out this life. Being an atheist would be
easy. Life has no meaning thus whatever I do has no meaning. If what we do has
no real meaning, then I am free to live my life for myself. Whatever brings me
temporal joy, will be what drives my behavior. This my friends, is the age we
are living in. The world is all about me.
But certainly, anyone
claiming to be a follower of Christ knows the Christian faith is not about
self. Right? Jesus is Himself the epitome of humility, having left the glory of
Heaven to come to earth and become like us, human. Though He remained fully God,
while being fully human, he set aside His deity and subjected Himself to humiliation
and suffering that would lead Him all the way to the cross. In Matthew 26:53
Jesus declared that he had at “His disposal more than twelve legions of angels”
who would sweep down at His request to save Him from the arrest that would lead
to His crucifixion. Jesus denied His own safety and comfort for all of us. He
knew the pain to come. Yet, he thought not of Himself, but of the lost and dying
world. So, He gave His very life.
Listen to this “fact.”
In 2015 according to the World Christian database as quoted in The World
Almanac and Book of Facts 2018 edition, there are 250,678,642 Christians in America.
That means that 77.9% of Americans claim to be Christian. When you go to
Walmart almost 8 out of 10 people you encounter are Christians. The highways
are filled with Christian drivers. Our businesses must be running by a
Christian majority. Our government has to filled with them.
Really? It sure doesn’t
look that way. The American culture is a mess. Crime, addiction, murders,
abortions, sexual promiscuity, divorce, school shootings and any and all kind
of sinful behaviors are everywhere we look. Either we are really bad at being
Christians or something else is at work here. Are we really going to believe
that almost eighty percent of Americans are living the Christian life?
One of the biggest
issues in communication is that often we say words to each other, but we do not
define them in the same way. Words have different meanings which are dependent
on the context of how they are spoken. They can be spoken in jest or
seriousness and things like body language are important to understanding the
meaning of a word or how it was meant to be taken. They also change across time
and generations, as well as across cultural settings. Communication is just not
that simple and this causes a wealth of misunderstanding in our world. So, when
we say we are a Christian, we need to find out just what that really means.
My guess is that the
250 some million Americans, do not define a Christian in the same way.
So, what do we do
with that? I suggest we go to the source. The Bible is the genesis, pun
intended, of the development of the term Christian. Before we can answer the
question, Am I a Christian, we must determine what that means. We must look
into scripture and find out what God has to say about being a Christian.
Before we explore
scripture, I suggest we spend time in prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to lead us
into the truth of what it means to be Christian.
In part three of this
little journey, I will try and discover what the Bible says. See you then.
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