How many of us when we read that question start running a quick internal check of how we are doing at “being a Christian”? Am I behaving nicely? Am I up to date with the things a Christian is expected to do?
I’ve heard people say “I’m not a very good Christian” or “I try to be a good Christian “ Trouble is, they don’t understand properly what a Christian is.
Actually, the concept of being a good Christian is a little odd.
If we ask what makes a ‘good’ Christian’ the answers that come back centre on behaviours: being kind or nice, not bad tempered, willing to help people etc. Then there are the ‘core’ christian characteristics we think are essential to please God; reading the bible and praying daily, going to church every week, giving….. Being able to tick the boxes for these behaviours is what qualifies “a good Christian”. If we can’t tick some of the boxes then perhaps we are not good Christians?
Behaviour, we think is our root problem. Focus effort on changing behaviour and we will become better.
“I NEED TO TRY HARDER” In the past, I often struggled with this nonsense – never feeling quite good enough, never reaching the mark, feeling inadequate and balancing trying to do/be better with not letting others see the real me. I didn’t want them to see that maybe I wasn’t quite making the grade as a good Christian. It becomes like wearing a mask – a nice Christian mask.
We can think (and may well have been taught) that behaviour and keeping regular disciplines is what qualifies us and makes us accepted by God. Comparison creeps in. We compare ourselves to others…..I don’t pray half as much as she does….He ‘studies the Word’ far more than I ever do. Then there is the comparison with our past….I’m not as good as I was….I slipped up badly this last week. What follows comparison, is incurable inadequacy and then condemnation. We need to ask where those things come from, or rather who they come from. Certainly not Jesus.
The notion of being a ‘good’ Christian assumes that being a Christian describes what you do. That can lead to a list of things as long as your arm. Actually, being a Christian doesn’t describe what you do.
Being a Christian describes whom you belong to. You belong to Jesus. You are in Him and He is in you. You are joined together, and He is not planning to divorce you. He is committed, 100% to you, for all time and eternity.
A Christian is a person who belongs to Jesus and follows Him (not always perfectly, by the way) and is now part of the family – the family of God. You don’t do ‘well’ or ‘badly’ at being part of a family. You are part of it. Full stop. It would be weird for someone to ask either of my daughters how well they were doing at being in my family. How we live is important, but failing to reach a certain standard does not disqualify us.
Colossians 1 v 12 tells us that it is Father God who has qualified us to share in the inheritance of His holy people in the kingdom of light.
We are qualified because of what He did, not because of what we do. Therefore we are not disqualified (or less qualified) because of what we have not done. That is why God says that we need to stop dwelling on the past.
Forget the former things;
do not dwell on the past…
Isaiah 43v18
Change is God’s plan for us. We are changing from ‘one degree of glory to another’ (2 Corinthians 3 v 18) but we do that out of a response to what God has already irrevocably done. Graham Cooke puts it neatly when he says “we don’t become a new person by changing our behaviour, but by realising who we are (whose family we are now in, who our Father is), and then behaving accordingly.
(You do know by the way, that Father God is not taking the register every morning to see who in class has done their homework – who has read their bible that day, who has prayed enough. He is our Father, not our Headmaster. He wants relationship with His children.)
In a nutshell, if our focus and attention is on Jesus, then we will find that we naturally begin to change and become more like Him. It’s the same principle that we see in the world – when a person idolises someone they then begin to mimic them to become like them. They adopt mannerisms, wear certain clothes etc. The bible has it right in Psalm 115 v 8 ……we become like whom we worship.
If our focus is on changing to become accepted, or right, then we will forever be trying to change ourselves with self effort, and forever faced with our own failures. Instead, focus on Jesus; on what He is saying, on how much He is for you. Focus on His majesty and power and sheer beauty – and everything else will come naturally.
As our energy is directed into our love of Jesus, we find ourselves naturally changing more and more into His wonderful likeness.
Simples! (The gospel was never meant to be complicated🙂)
Church is out there 