 I don’t want to be a Christian…
Maybe I need to explain this statement. Over the next three weeks I want to address three different categories of modern religious experience that we should not want to be. I do not want to imply that I believe that there are different kinds of Christians, but there are those who are labeled as “Christians” but the fruit of faithful obedience is lacking from those lives. None of us should want to be a fruitless Christian. I don’t want to be a casual Christian. The casual Christian is something that I simply do not understand. Christianity is built on the reality that there is a just, holy, sovereign, and loving God who has made everything and everyone for His own glory. Furthermore, human beings who have been created in His image have rebelled against His character and become sinners deserving of punishment with an infinite debt of transgression and iniquity. However, this God who is both just and gracious has chosen to save sinners through His own sacrifice to pay the penalty for their sin. The Father gave His Son the Lord Jesus Christ to pay the sin debt for every person who will believe. So it makes sense to me that a person who doesn’t believe this is true would go on about their life being unaffected by the wonder of what has been done, because to them it is but a fairytale or myth. The lost sinner still captive to their depravity and dead in trespasses and sins (Ephesians 2:1) is as responsive to the things of God as a corpse at a rock concert. No matter how loud or exciting the entertainment is, this one is dead. Hearts of stone are hard by virtue of their being and so the sinner is hardened to the truth and beauty of the gospel. One final analogy: the blind person is unaffected by the transcendent beauty of both the mountains and beach because they can’t see the obvious glory. Also, it makes sense to me that someone who does believe this good news would be not only ready and willing, but compelled, to give their life to the purposes of glorifying and proclaiming this to the nations. When I read the accounts of heroes of the faith from former times I am amazed at the providence of God. However, the obedience of believers ought not to amaze us. The reason is that they believed. We should expect incredible sacrifice from people who truly believe in the loving and sovereign God described and communicated to us in the Scriptures. The efforts and exploits of these courageous saints are the natural consequences of real faith. The Apostles, the early church fathers, the Lollards, the reformers, the puritans, and the early leaders of the modern missionary movement are all examples of Christians who were not extremists but rather simply genuine believers. The only position that simply does not make sense is the one that seems to be the most common one expressed around me. The person who affirms that these things are true but seems to be unaffected in either passion or action. How can we be truly convinced of the amazing and miraculous accounts in the Bible and yet face our world in purely materialistic terms? How can we believe in the mercy, love, and grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and yet engage our world with such indifference? How can we be filled with the Holy Spirit and experience the peace and joy of the Lord without that affecting our whole life? Casual is defined as something happening by chance or without definite or serious intention. So if our Christianity is casual, then it is just happenstance and definitely not serious. But no one could honestly read the Bible and come away believing that the faith in the sacred text could be described as casual. No, I don’t want to be a casual Christian.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |