What Does It Mean To Be A Christian?

This post is in response to your April 10, 2016 3:25 AM comment.  There you asked:

“Why wouldn't I want to be a Christian as you define it? If I can get saved and still sin all I want and don't have to do anything different than what I do now- tell me WHY DO YOU THINK I DONT WANT TO BE A CHRISTIAN?”

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First, we need some definitions:

For this post, ‘saved’, ‘born again’, and ‘have eternal life’ mean the same thing.

Everyone is born morally imperfect. Parents don’t teach their kids to grab things saying “Mine” and then deny their actions by saying, “I didn’t do it!” (Selfish, liars, and on and on)

Death has two meanings, depending on its context: one is a cessation of life, and one is separation. For example, when a human dies the body ceases to live while the soul continues to live separated from the body.

Sin means “push back against God”. Questions about God and his choices are not sin, when the questions become commitments and actions against God they are sin.

God is God! His character is such that he will not, and cannot, allow pushback and moral imperfection to be in his presence.

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Illustrations are like humans, none of them are perfect. I’ll use the illustration of being an American to illustrate my understanding of being a Christian. There are two parts to being American, first is how to become one, and second how to act when you are one.

The same is true for Christianity – how does one become a Christian, and how does one act as a Christian.

HOW DOES ONE BECOME A CHRISTIAN?

Becoming a Christian and becoming an American are similar. One becomes an American citizen by birth or by taking an oath and pledging allegiance.  

One becomes a Christian in much the same way, we believe what God says about himself and his Son. When one becomes a Christian it’s called a second-birth, born again. God does not have any grandchildren; everyone must make their own commitment. There is a saying that sums this up nicely: If we are born once, then we must die twice. If we are born twice then we only die once.

Here are three verses that explain the process of becoming a Christian (born the second time).

"For God loved the world so much that He gave His one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life.” (Joh 3:16 NLT)

God saved you by His grace when you believed. And you can't take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. (Eph 2:8-9 NLT)

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. (Rom 10:9-10 NLT)

What we believe about God is important, it’s what makes the difference between Christians and non-Christians. Here it is in one verse:

For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Rom 6:23 NLT)

Let me re-write that verse in our common vernacular:

The result of any pushback against God means we are eternally separated from God, BUT, God loved us so much that he allowed his Son to die on a cross to pay for all of our pushback, and now his free gift to us [who accept] is the privilege of spending eternity with him! (Romans 6:23 by Ray Sammons)

Here are two more verses that express the Good News about what God has done for us!

With His own blood—not the blood of goats and calves—He entered the Most Holy Place once for all time and secured our redemption forever. (Heb 9:12 NLT)

Just think how much more the blood of Christ will purify our consciences from sinful deeds so that we can worship the living God. For by the power of the eternal Spirit, Christ offered Himself to God as a perfect sacrifice for our sins. (Heb 9:14 NLT)

The following verses also say what God has done for us:

It is this Good News … I passed on to you what was most important and what had also been passed on to me. Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said. He was buried, and He was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. (1Co 15:2-4 NLT)

It's important to remember that good people don't go to heaven, only forgiven people go to heaven!

Here it is in a nutshell: To become a Christian we recognize that we have pushback against God, we recognize that Jesus died to pay for all our pushback, and we say to God, “I accept Jesus’s death as payment for all my pushback.”

HOW TO LIVE AS A CHRISTIAN

When we look across America we see all kinds of people – mechanics, truck drivers, mothers, fathers, children, doctors, lawyers, judges, military, pastors, prisoners, students, and on and on. The point being, all Americans don’t do the same thing, but they are all Americans. People do not lose their citizenship by what they do or don’t do – regardless of what they do, all citizens have the same guarantees and privileges.

So it is with Christians, to become a Christian everyone accepts the substitutionary death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Just as being an American does not mean that everyone does the same thing, uniformity of Christian belief does not mean conformity of Christian expression.

There are only two Christian rules, principals, laws, commandments, whatever you wish to call them:

Jesus replied, "The most important commandment is this: 'Listen, O Israel! The LORD our God is the one and only LORD. And you must love the LORD your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.' The second is equally important: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' No other commandment is greater than these." (Mar 12:29-31 NLT)

You feel that I’ve said that after you become a Christian you can live as you want to, and technically that’s true – it’s true because when we become a Christian God gives us a new ‘wanter’. Consider this verse:

Whoever is a believer in Christ is a new creation. The old way of living has disappeared. A new way of living has come into existence. God has done all this. He has restored our relationship with him through Christ, and has given us this ministry of restoring relationships. (2Co 5:17-18 GW)

As Christians we are new creations, some of what we once wanted has changed, we now want different things. As we learn more and more about God’s love for us, we desire to be more and more like him. We can have joy like he has joy!

If you obey my commandments, you will live in my love. I have obeyed my Father's commandments, and in that way I live in his love. I have told you this so that you will be as joyful as I am, and your joy will be complete. (Joh 15:10-11 GW)

Here's another set of verses about how Christians live:

1Jn 1:4-10 GW

(4)  We are writing this so that we can be completely filled with joy.

(5)  This is the message we heard from Christ and are reporting to you: God is light, and there isn't any darkness in him.

(6)  If we say, "We have a relationship with God" and yet live in the dark, we're lying. We aren't being truthful.

(7)  But if we live in the light in the same way that God is in the light, we have a relationship with each other. And the blood of his Son Jesus cleanses us from every sin.

(8)  If we say, "We aren't sinful" we are deceiving ourselves, and the truth is not in us.

(9)  God is faithful and reliable. If we confess our sins, he forgives them and cleanses us from everything we've done wrong.

(10)  If we say, "We have never sinned," we turn God into a liar and his Word is not in us.

The Bible is full of examples and principals that help us be like Jesus. And I’d have to quote the whole Bible to cover them all. The important thing to remember is that Christians don't do nor not-do certain things to become Christian. Rather, they do or don’t-do certain things because they are Christians.

For example, people don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance to become Americans, people say it because they are Americans.

The Christian life is divided into two parts: the first is salvation, the second is sanctification. We believe what God said about Jesus to become Christian, and we spend the rest of our lives becoming more like Jesus– which is sanctification.  We want to become sanctified because that is what makes our joy complete - the more we are the more we want, it's addictive.

Lastly you asked me to tell you why I think you don’t want to be a Christian. There is a list of reasons, I’ll mention a few.

You don’t want to become a Christian because you enjoy destroying people and things. You do ‘comedy’ so you can make fun of people, destroy what they hold sacred, ridicule so others will laugh.

Your desire to destroy forbids you from acknowledging Jesus as Lord. To acknowledge Jesus as Lord requires you to admit there is someone bigger than you are. It requires you to accept a free gift, something you do not deserve, and something you didn’t work for.

You don’t become a Christian because you enjoy the pushback against God and your parents.

You don’t become a Christian because you have dual loyalties, you’d like to be God’s child but you don’t want to sever your relationships with the people John calls false-prophets. You want to be comfortable, but not committed.

You don’t become a Christian because you don’t think you can handle the joy, happiness, and inner satisfaction God promises. Somehow, you feel you don't deserve it - and you don't, neither do I!

You don’t become a Christian because of a twisted understanding of grace and works. Paul rightly says that salvation is a gift from God that we don’t deserve, and James says if you have the gift your life will show it. They are both saying the same thing!  The are both correct. They don’t contradict each other.

People come to God with either a sickle (to attack him), sieve (to hear about him but not keep anything he offers) , or a semi-truck (to haul away and enjoy as much as possible); and everyone gets exactly what they came for!

You asked why I think you don’t become a Christian; in reality I don’t have a clue! Not becoming a Christian is nothing new, it started with the people that listened to Jesus in person and continues until now.

Personally, I can’t understand why everyone doesn’t become a Christian. The price is right and the benefits are out of this world! If there is a better deal I want to know about it!

To recap: To become a Christian we accept Jesus’s sacrificial life and his death in our place. To live as a Christian we commit all we have and are to all we know about God, and we keep on enjoying him forever!

Our Bible study and its understanding is clearer and more productive when we divide what we read and study into salvation teaching or sanctification teaching.