“For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”- 2 Corinthians 5:21

 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.-Ephesians 2:8-9

“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” –Hebrews 4:13.

 

I thought I was a Christian

I called myself a Christian
Because I believed in Christ.
I knew He freely took on my sin
Then died on the cross to pay the price.

I didn’t go to church each week
I believed that didn’t mean a thing.
Because I believed in the Christian God
And called Jesus Christ my King.

I didn’t know there was more to faith,
I simply believed what others said.
I rarely opened up my Bible
It sat on a dusty shelf unread.

But then one day God decided
He needed more time with me.
So, He completely rearranged my life
So that all my time was free.

He chased me down and bound me up;
He let me know I could not hide.
He knew He must sequester me
Until He broke through my pride.

I must admit I was mad at God.
I didn’t understand what He had done.
I didn’t want to be homebound
With no place left for me to run.

At first, I refused to give in to Him,
Behaved as if He was my enemy.
But soon I began to feel His peace
So, I surrendered gracefully.

I began to read the Bible.
And found out just how I was lost.
Then I found grace and beauty
In His death upon the cross.

In time, I came to understand
The genius of His eternal plan.
And how exquisitely He has saved us
By sending the Word to earth as man.

I cannot express my gratitude
For how God imposed His love on me;
When I thought I was His hostage
That’s when, in truth, He set me free.

It is  freedom like no other,
For, paradoxically, I’m still bound.
But it is in the binding of obedience
That my true autonomy was found.
©Linda Troxell  12/20/2019

In the years since I’ve become a Christian, I have discovered that Christians are not a homogenous group as I’d once thought them to be, and as many non-Christians still believe them to be. From the outside, they all seem the same and they are all judged good or bad depending on who is doing the judging.

But Christians are certainly not all the same. There are many kinds of Christians and their differences often go far beyond disagreements of creeds, doctrines or liturgies. The differences I’m talking about come from the individual and not their denomination.

Some Christians seem pretentious, and some seem mean and judgmental; some Christians seem phony and some seem to be lying hypocrites. I say they seem this way but in truth, those Christians probably are all of those things. However, those individuals only seem to be Christians. No one who displays those characteristics on a regular basis is a real Christian. Because Christianity is based on the very opposite of all of those characteristics.

It is based first on love and obedience to God. And next, it is based on being as much like Jesus as we can in this fallen and sinful world. We, as Christians, are striving to live by and give to others the principles of love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, otherwise known as fruits of the Spirit. But please remember we, are all in different stages of learning to live this way.

I was older when I accepted Jesus as my Lord. So turning my life over to Christ was, by no means, done on a whim. In fact, I chased it and I worked for it. That may not fit into anyone’s concept of Christianity, doesn’t it say He chases us? Well, in reality, He chased me for a long time and then He took me hostage. It was only after that I began to chase His love.  Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.  Psalm 139:8-10

For my entire life, I believed I was a Christian. Of course, I knew I was a weddings and funerals, Christmas and Easter type of Christian. Because, for the most part, those were the only times I went to church. But that didn’t exclude me from being a Christian in my mind because I still believed in Christ.

What I didn’t know is that truly being a Christian requires far more than just believing in Christ. First, it requires one to know what “I believe in Christ.” means. I was unaware that it meant anything beyond the belief that he existed and was crucified and resurrected.  Of course, I was wrong.

Most of what believing means to a Christian can be found in the Apostle’s Creed. And it says this: I believe in God the Father Almighty, Maker of heaven and earth. And in Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord; who was conceived by the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose again from the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.

For me to believe all of that, required that I do some reading and research. If I was going to believe something so beautiful, yet fantastical, I was going to have to come to my own belief and not depend on a hand me down faith. I wasn’t going to accept what was handed to me without investigation.

And I did read and research and I fought hard to believe it. Who wouldn’t want to believe something so beautiful? Who wouldn’t want to believe that they are loved unconditionally by a God who left heaven to come to earth in order to live a sinless human life, be beaten and humiliated before being nailed to a cross, and slowly dying in the hot sun simply to personally pay the penalty for our sin?  “For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”- 2 Corinthians 5:21

Who wouldn’t want to believe that no matter what happens in this life there is another life in which there is no pain or strife or heartache; a place where there is only love?

However, I don’t easily accept as fact, anything that sounds too good to be true. I don’t readily believe every attractive story that comes down the pike. Oh, I want to. I want to because I am also afraid of everything. Especially the new and the unknown. And I have a very low expectation of my own resourcefulness and motivation, particularly in the face of fear.

For example, if my plane crashed on a snow-covered mountain they would not be writing a book about my heroism and resourcefulness in getting to safety. No, they would only write my obituary when they found my body the following spring.

So, I want to believe those stories where one can have one’s most cherished dream come true by wishing on a star or by blowing on some magic coins while turning around 3 times and saying magic words. But I just can’t.

Many people acquaint Christianity with just such mumbo jumbo. Some write us off from the beginning saying that believing in any god is just a way of not facing the real world. They agree with Karl Marx that religion is the opiate of the people.

Others, who may believe in some sort of god, say that Christianity as we believe it is nothing but a fairy tale. Their interpretation of what we believe is this:  We accept Jesus as our savior. We tell God we’re sorry for our sins and He forgives us.  After that, they believe, we are good with God and can do whatever we like from then on and still go to heaven. Or, if we wait until just before we die we can say we’re sorry for it all and still go to heaven.

They just cannot believe that being saved is uncomplicated and as easy as we believe it to be. And they believe it is easy. They cannot shake the belief that if there is a God who can save us, He would demand something in return that is beyond the ability of everyone but a chosen few. And believing they are not one of the chosen they simply walk away from God altogether.  For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.-Ephesians 2:8-9

These people know that the nature of man is not goodness. So they are unable to understand how we could believe that we can be saved through repentance, no matter our wickedness in life, right up to the minute we take our last breath. The world, they say, would be chaos, murder, and mayhem if that were true.

I get it. People think “Wow! I can just accept Jesus and then I can do whatever I want and I’m covered.” Or they think, “Well that’s easy, I’ll do whatever I want until I’m on my death bed then I’ll confess and accept Jesus and I’m good.” And if it worked like that I would call B. S. too.

But it doesn’t work that way. There is so much more to Christianity than being saved by grace or repenting to be saved from hell. That’s just the bonus to having a lifelong relationship with God. Those who write Christianity off as mumbo jumbo or a fairy tale are missing the beauty and the grace of being a Christian.

They are missing the enormous love involved in Jesus taking our sin as his own and dying on the cross to give us salvation. They are missing the wonder of knowing that when He took our sins upon Himself He also gave us justification.

No longer sinful, we are justified in the eyes of the Father. They are missing the beauty of our sanctification and how little by little, over our lifetime, we are remade in the image of the Lord.

Those who know next to nothing about Christianity, yet, still feel qualified to judge it, think that they can just pretend to repent, pretend they have accepted Jesus and go about their merry way. But they are missing another important point in their judgment, God’s omniscience. That means you can’t fool Him.  “Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account” –Hebrews 4:13.

Because He is omniscient He knows everything at all times. Including when our confession and repentance is real and when it’s just one more sin we’re racking up. So, someone who pretends to repent and pretends to accept Jesus cannot fool God nor can they fool real Christians for long.

“Wait a minute,” you might be saying, “God knows all and that means He knows when we are just trying to run a con. But how  do Christians know?” Calm down, It isn’t because we get omniscience when we are saved. But it is because of something that happens when we’re saved.

You see, when we truly and honestly repent and accept Jesus as our Lord, at that same time our sins are forgiven and we are justified in the eyes of God. This qualifies us to become joint-heirs with Jesus.

Sinless in the eyes of God, we can now be in God’s presence and thus in His family as well. And we become heirs to the kingdom of heaven where we can live eternally with God.  So that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs having the hope of eternal life. Titus 3:7

When we become a part of God’s family our run of the mill faith and love for God and others is supercharged by the Holy Spirit. And slowly, we begin to be conformed to the mind and image of Jesus. This, then, changes our hearts and minds and we begin to want to do the right thing. We begin to want to help those who need our help. In short, we begin to want to make our God happy.

So, if someone is claiming to have repented and accepted Jesus as their Lord and Savior we should see some changes in their life.  For example, because they now know that they are a child of God, they will feel safer and we should start to see more genuine confidence in them.

Because they know they are loved by God we ought to see them becoming more loving themselves. And because they now have more compassion we should see them reaching out to others who need help.

And while those are just a few things that show on the outside, there will be many, many bigger and better changes on the inside that we can’t see. However, if someone claims to be saved but is not changing, is not becoming more humble, more merciful, and more generous; if they are not becoming more like our Lord, then perhaps that person has not been saved at all.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, tells us faith without deeds to make it tangible is not genuine faith. He says that those who have genuine faith are doers of the word and not just hearers of the word. In the same way, faith by itself, if not accompanied by action, is dead. –James 2:17

 Is becoming a real Christian hard? Well, that depends on your perspective.  As Christians we have much expected of us, we have much responsibility, and we are held accountable by the Lord and other believers.

That really sounds hard, I know. But for everything we are expected to do, we always have support, we are rewarded for our efforts, and encouraged to be our best. All of this allows us to find feelings of safety, love, and acceptance. It makes us feel like part of a family. And we are a family, God’s family.

But it isn’t a game and it isn’t something you can fake. Oh, you may be able to fool some people for some time with an outward act. You may get some perks for that; you may even be able to con some Christians into giving you something of material value. But you won’t fool God.

And you are risking His wrath. Now, you might tell me you aren’t afraid because you don’t believe in God. Well let me just warn you, God doesn’t need you to believe in Him to unleash His wrath on you.

Before I became a Christian I was unmotivated, unfulfilled and totally bored with my life. I saw no path for anything to change even though (I thought) I was searching with all of my heart.

But I was searching everywhere except the one place I could find meaning for my life. God offered Himself to me many times in many ways but to my mind, there were too many expectations which I knew I couldn’t meet.

But I guess God got tired of my game and one day He changed my life so that I had all the time in the world to learn about Him. Actually, He changed it so I had nothing much to do but learn about Him.

And being naturally curious I read and I researched and I became enamored by the beauty of the Christian story. If, in fact, it was true. Finally, I wanted it so much I decided I would act as if it was true for a while to see what would happen.

Well, what happened I think is clear. I slowly began to see the beauty and the truth in other Christians. I saw unlimited love, mercy, caring, and humility. Admittedly they were in various stages of development in various different people, but they were all trying.

Could they be pretending? No, I knew that they could not consistently behave that way unless there was some kind of payoff. And I certainly had nothing to give them.

Finally, the more I interacted with them, the more I wanted what they had. And I could see that the only real difference between me and them was that they had committed their lives to Jesus. So I decided I would do that too. And so began my journey in which I was finally fervently searching for heaven in the appropriate place. I hope you will give it a try too.

 

Let’s Pray,
Father, there are so many people who are kept from the truth of your love because they just, without question, believe that Christians are judgmental and hypocritical. They don’t try to understand that Christians, like everyone else, are all in different places in their journey of learning the truth. We know that if those people would spend the time and effort to seek out more mature Christians, Christians that better understand the life of our savior and how He wants us to live, they would see a whole different story. They would see the beauty of the body of Christ that so loves God’s people that they are reaching out to strangers in order to bring them to a life with Jesus at the center. They are doing the best to obey Jesus’ commandment that they go and make disciples of them all.  They would see people who after working their jobs each day or each week  and still going out to help those in need. They go out to feed the hungry, heal the sick and clothe those who are cold. Father, please allow them to open their hearts and their eyes to see Christian as they are, fallible, and sinful children of God seeking to become better in your name. And Lord, help us all to be more true to your values and life so that when outsiders look at us they will see warm and loving people. They will see something that they would like to have; something that might bring them to you, God. We pray this in the holy name of Jesus, Amen.

 

Points to Ponder or for Prayer

Or for Putting Pen to Paper.

 

Think about and reflect upon your journey to Christ and to accepting Him as your Lord and Savior. Then write a paragraph, or more, about it, touching on, what you were like before you found Christ; what happened to make you decide to accept Him; and what you are like now and how that is different?

Have you ever had to deal with outsiders who judged you because you are Christian? What did they say and how did that make you feel?

Now, based on what they said in their judgment,  reflect on what they might have seen in you that led them to that judgment and honestly evaluate whether or not it has any truth in it. And if it does, write about what you might do to remedy it.