What is a Christian?

Jeremiah 7:1-7

What you believe has everything to do with how one lives life, and as a person who no longer understands what the general public means when they claim to be Christians, I find myself moving from that term.  What is a Christian? By Mattson: "Are you a Christian?" I once asked an acquaintance. She creased her eyebrows and thought about that.  "I'm not really sure," she said. "What is a Christian?"  I was impressed with her honesty and the profundity of her question. She knew very well who Jesus was. As I talked with her, I found that she had grown up in the church. Yet she didn't really know what a Christian was. And I could hardly blame her.

What is a Christian, anyway? Someone of European descent?  A persecutor of Jews? Someone who votes for only the most conservative Republicans? At times all of these answers have seemed plausible. Some use these definitions to this day.  In Christian circles the answers are no clearer. A Christian is sometimes said to be someone who has made a decision; sometimes, someone who belongs to a church; far too often, someone who confesses the right creeds. Which brings us right back to our question: What, really, is a Christian?”

 

For many years I’ve been in agreement with that young lady, for I’ve come to understand from a book called the Bible that it never lies, it is living and sharper than a two edged sword, and when it speaks I must listen and obey.  Jesus’ Brother James has this to say in James 1:22-25, “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing.”  If you do not plan on doing so, would it not be smarter not to read God’s Word in the first place?

The Lord has this word for Jeremiah to speak to all of us, many of us have not stood at the gates of the LORD’s house and been faithful to that voice, we have been quiet at home, and in the market place, and many are asking “What is a Christian?”  It is time to stand and share what you are and if you have or are becoming a follower of Christ.  Are you abiding in Christ, are you living in faith or fear, for faith cannot share space with fear?

Listen to these words from our great God and Father in verse 3-7, “Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’

“For if you truly amend your ways and your deeds, if you truly execute justice one with another, if you do not oppress the sojourner, the fatherless, or the widow, or shed innocent blood in this place, and if you do not go after other gods to your own harm, then I will let you dwell in this place, in the land that I gave of old to your fathers forever.”  Now, remember this book never lies.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice