What is a Christian?
For in Him we live and move and have our being… (Acts 17:28a).
A Christian or a follower of Christ is a member of the family of God and not a supporter of a certain religious order or a member of a certain church or denomination. You cannot join the family of God through church membership and then attend church services regularly, live according to Biblical principles and do good works. You are not a Christian because you are born into a Christian family even if the last ten generations of the male members of your family were all pastors and evangelists. You are a member of a God’s family when you are born into His family. You become a new addition to the family of God when you are born of the Spirit of God. You need to be born of God to be a family member of God.
Christianity is the only faith that accentuates family ties with his god and emphasizes a Father-son relationship (nothing to do with gender) with the only true God; Jehovah (YHWH) is His name. All other faiths, which are religion, are based on superstitions and dead rituals. Christianity is not a religion but a Father-son relationship, in Christ Jesus, with the only true God. In Christ, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our Father. All other faiths (religions) are varieties of Satanism.
Why should you belong to the family of God? Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead, created all things, including you, thus you are belonging to Him and not to yourself or to somebody else. All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made (John 1:3). Jesus is not only Creator but also Maintainer of all things. …has in these last days spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds [Creator]; who being the brightness of His glory and the express image of His person, and upholding [Maintainer] all things by the word of His power (Hebrews 1:2-3, emphasis added). So, all creation, visible and invisible, belongs to God and not to another. God has created you, for His pleasure. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory and honor and power: for thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created (Revelation 4:11, KJV, emphasis added). The Creator and Maintainer of all things is also the Redeemer of His own creation. For it pleased the Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross (Colossians 1:20). So, God created you, maintaining your life and has redeemed you from the fall and saved you from the wrath of God. This is the evidence that you belong to God and not to another god or yourself because there is no other Creator, Maintainer and Redeemer besides Jehovah (YHWH). In Christ alone is redemption. The moment you surrender your life to Christ, His redemptive work is activated in your life. If you remain outside of Christ, though He paid the price for your redemption in full, you will remain unredeemed and the Righteous Judge will eventually judge you for rejecting the Lord Jesus Christ, who is the only way toward reconciliation with God.
What will God’s judgment be? God will eternally abandon everyone whose name is not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life into the lake of fire (hell fire and brimstone). And anyone not found written in the Book of Life was cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15, emphasis added). Just as the glories of heaven are inconceivably perfection and fulfillment and of unimaginable splendor so is hell a godforsaken place that is filled with dissatisfaction and a place where the lack of all needs, desires and obsessions consumes you. Hell is an eternal place of horror, filled with the damned that burn in the unquenchable flames of hell where the stench of a mixture of sulphur and burning human flesh suffocates you in a warm sticky darkened evil atmosphere. In hell is no love, friendships or compassion but only bitter reproach and remorse. In hell is a window where you can observe the glories of heaven you could have inherited if you would have yielded your life to Christ (Luke 13:28; 16:23). Hell is a place that was prepared for the devil and demons and not for men. Since the transgression of Adam, the fierce wrath of God is for all whose names are not recorded in the Book of Life. Once you are in hell it will be eternally too late to change your destiny. Believe me my words are a total understatement of the true horrors of hell.
Why can you not redeem yourself through your own natural worth? God created Adam in His image and likeness. He was perfect and had the ability to please God on his own merits. When Adam sinned he died to God and lost the ability to please Him through his own intrinsic worth. In Adam, we all died to God, so you are not able to please God on your own inherent merits. God has never changed; man changed through sin. When you are born of the Spirit of God you are quickened to God in your spirit; that is the new birth (Romans 8:10). However, your body is still dead because of sin and your soul that lives in your blood is enmity against God, therefore you are still imperfect.
Your redeemed spirit is alive to God and is the part in you that hungers after God. That part in you that still desires to trespass is your soul. Your wicked soul that lives in your blood defiled your body (temple). That is why your body is the unrighteous slave of your wicked soul. This is a result of the fall. Christ has redeemed you in full but you are not fully restored to perfection yet. That is why you are still sinning. So then with the mind [spirit of his mind; not carnal mind] I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh the law of sin (Romans 7:25).
The good news is that at the last trumpet you will be made alive to God in your body as the Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead will quicken your mortal body and your body will be clothed with immortality and incorruption. Your soul will be clothed with perfection as the fullness of God’s light will displace all darkness in you. Then you will relate to God as a perfect man through perfect love as it was in the beginning. Faith and hope that is in part will be swallowed up of perfect love.
Now that you know that you are not perfect, relate to God through faith and not perfection. Faith is not perfection but only the shadow of perfection to come. In this present dispensation of imperfection and lack you are not meant to be perfect therefore you should relate to God through faith. Christians, because of ignorance, attempt to be perfect before God and man but are disillusioned when things are not working out according to their expectation. Do not lay a yoke on yourself and others which you cannot carry. As long as you are in the dispensation of imperfection and lack God is not looking for perfection but for faith. …when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8b). When you believe God, you please Him and His grace is released in your life. When you try to present to God some version of your fleshly perfection you insult the grace of God. Relax, have faith in God.
What is the difference between faith and perfection? In the dispensation of perfection and fulfillment to come all things that you will do, will be a flow of spontaneous unfailing and perfect love that will spring up inside of you like a fountain that can never dry up.
In this present dispensation of imperfection and lack all things that you say and do, you should relate to God in faith in hope of perfection. You are so imperfect that even the love that you are manifesting is in faith with hope that you will become an eternal fountain of spontaneous love. There is no need for hope and faith in a sphere of perfection and fulfillment since all things are perfect because of immeasurable fulfillment. Faith, in relationship to perfection, is the shadow of perfection to come but not perfection itself. Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1, emphasis added). Hope is dreaming of perfection and fulfillment and faith is walking in the time of imperfection and lack in the promises of God as if it is the time of perfection and fulfillment. Enoch and Elijah believed God, walked in future glories to come, please God with their faith and were translated before the time of the last trumpet. You can have the same if you manifest the same faith as these two prophets. Remember, these prophets were men with weaknesses like you and me. When the dispensation of perfection and fulfillment come hope and faith will be swallowed up by perfect love. So while you are awaiting the redemption of your body, walk by faith in God in hope of resurrection life. If you have this hope in you, you purify yourself even as Christ is pure (1 John 3:3).
If you are imperfect how can you please God on your own merits; without faith? You know in part and speak in part. How can you compare your character and strength, with God’s who is eternal, immortal, invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient and all-perfect? If you are dead to God in your sin, how can you that are dead please the Fountain of life? Or, how can you of yourself, who is full of darkness, please the Source of all light. Can you who do not stand in the truth pleases the Beginning and End and Embodiment of all Truth; He that put no trust in His servants and charges His angels with error? Can a mortal be more righteous than God? Can a man be more pure than his Maker? (Job 4:17). Unless Christ is your justification and righteousness you have no justification and righteousness before God. But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousness like filthy rags… (Isaiah 64:6). You as an unredeemed man have not the eternal life of Christ inherently in yourself which is crucial to be righteous before God. Therefore, you cannot redeem yourself before God by attempting to give him your ragged version of righteousness. God will not accept it. Unless you are justified in the Son and have accepted His righteousness as your own, your sin and guilt will remain in the sight of God. Unless the blood of the Lamb is founded on the doorpost of your heart you will remain guilty in the presence of God as you will remain dead in your trespasses.
A long time ago God gave man a chance to prove himself righteous before God. When God established a Covenant of Works with Israel He burdened them with the responsibility to please Him with works through their own worth. The terms of the Covenant of the Law were that if the Israelites kept the covenant they would be a special treasure to God above all people and they shall be a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Him and the Lord will bless them. If they violated the covenant, they would be cursed (Deuteronomy 28). The obligation was with man to keep the covenant. Because the law is spiritual and perfect the righteous requirement of the law could not be fulfilled in the flesh (Romans 8:4). With the Covenant of Works, God proved every man to be a liar and God alone to be the Truth. This is God’s proof to you that you cannot redeem yourself through your own worth. Knowing that a man is not justified by the works of the law but by faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law; for by works of the law no flesh shall be justified (Galatians 2:16, emphasis added).
Can I serve another god and still be reconciled to God, not losing my soul? No. You shall have no other gods before Me (Exodus 20:3). There is no other god but Jehovah (YHWH); all the others are demons. So, the scribe said to Him, “Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for there is one God, and there is no other but He (Mark 12:32, emphasis added). To be born into the family of God you have to go through Jesus and not another, because He is the only way to the Father. Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me (John 14:6, emphasis added). Stories that there are many ways to God and eternal life is a lie from hell that Satan devised to rob you of eternal life. There is no salvation but in Jesus because there is no other name under heaven given to you by which you must be saved (Acts 4:12). If you reject the salvation of God, Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior, I guarantee you that you will spend eternity in the torments of hell. He who believes in the Son has everlasting life; and he who does not believe the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God abides on him (John 3:36, emphasis added).
Why is the name of Jesus Christ alone sufficient before God? There is only salvation in Jesus Christ for it is the only name under heaven given among men whereby man can be saved, not Buda, Allah, or any other name (Acts 4:12). Jesus Christ alone died for your sins and rose from the dead that you may have life in Him; no one else. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God (John 3:18). Only faith in the name of Christ is sufficient to get you reconciled to God and no other name.
Why are the merits of Jesus Christ alone acceptable to God? Adam brought sin and death into the world and spread it to all men. Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the world, and death through sin, and thus death spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans 5:12). God’s holiness demanded righteous judgment on sin. For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God [Christ in you] (Romans 3:23). Imperfection is the lack of the glory of God, which is Christ in you. Your only hope of glory is Christ within you the hope of glory. Unless you have the Spirit of Christ in you, you fall short of the glory of God and you stand under His judgments. For the remission of your sin God’s judgment demands the shedding of blood. God counted Christ alone worthy to be slain and to redeem you to God by His blood. For this reason He was born and came into the world. No one else was found worthy to redeem you to God. Christ, the perfect sacrifice, was offered once and for all to bear your sins. God poured out all of His fury and judgment on Christ to redeem you from your sin and saved you from His judgment. Your redemption is all about transference. On the cross your entire imperfect existence of past, present and future sin was transferred to Christ. Christ’s perfect life and eternal righteousness were transferred to you that you could become in Him the righteousness of God through faith. The moment you are Christ’s, the benefit of His redemptive work is yours. The catch is: “You must be, in Him, to be a beneficiary.” God sent Christ to the world to redeem you and that commission made Him worthy as sacrifice for your sin and not another. God needed a Lamb without blemish. Christ who is the fullness of the Godhead bodily was counted worthy; there was no other who could qualify. It was also appropriate for the Creator and Maintainer of creation to be also its Redeemer.
Do you know that God loves you? Love always gives. For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life (John 3:16).
Jesus took the worst punishment and torment imaginable on the cross that you, in Him, may have eternal life. You may say yes but thousands upon thousands of people died on Roman crucifixes. What is so special about Jesus’ death?
The greatest suffering on the cross was not the physical and emotional battering Jesus received but being forsaken by the Father on account of your sins caused His death. The Father divorced His Spirit from Christ’s Spirit that God’s holiness could be made manifested in righteous judgment. On the cross the Father and the Holy Spirit was crucified with Christ and suffered with Him the torment of the unimaginable loss of separation. When Jesus died the pain in the Father’s heart was so immense that He thought about you to lessen the pain in His broken heart.
Because of your sin God cut Jesus out of His family that you may be grafted into His family tree. Let me explain the separation of the Holy Trinity more clearly that you may comprehend the love of God for you. After one willfully fall away from God it is not possible to be renewed to repentance again because you crucify Christ again and put Him to an open shame (Hebrews 6:6). It is not physically possible to bring Christ down from heaven and nail Him afresh on a cross. But if you fall away in apostasy He will separate His Spirit from your spirit and you will put Him once again through the torment of separation, thus crucifying the Son of God afresh. To divorce His Spirit from yours will be just as traumatic for Him as when the Father separated His Spirit from Christ’s during His crucifixion. Christ’s physical and emotional suffering was unimaginable gruesome but it was the rejection of the Father of the Son that broke the Father’s heart and caused the death of Christ. Jesus had to drink the cup of rejection and separation that you may be accepted in the Beloved. The Holy Trinity has humbled Themselves to a point where They were for a moment in time no Trinity; They went through the agony of separation that caused Christ’s death, to save you. This is how much God loves you.
Do you know that God has a wonderful plan for your life? Salvation is all about God’s purpose to bring forth many sons to glory. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren (Hebrews 2:10-11). Jesus came to the world to introduce God as Father and Himself as our oldest brother. God’s focus is on His family, which finds its expression in the Father-son relationship in Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s plan for your life is that you may be a son (nothing to do with gender) to Him. For whom He foreknew, He also predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren (Romans 8:29).
If today were your last day on earth, do you know for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt what your eternal destiny is; eternal death or eternal life? How will you know if you belong to Christ? Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he is not His (Romans 8:9b, emphasis added). The vital proof is whether your spirit is one with the Spirit of Christ. When you are joined to your wife in marriage you become one flesh with her. As it is in the natural so it is in the Spirit. But He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with Him (1 Corinthians 6:17, emphasis added). Your relationship with Christ is as holy as a marriage relationship. For your Maker is your husband, the Lord of hosts is His name; and your redeemer is the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the whole earth (Isaiah 54:5, emphasis added).
What is the proof that you belong to Christ? By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word shall be established (2 Corinthians 13:1b). The Holy Spirit and your own spirit are the two witnesses (sufficient to establish the truth) that bear witness that you are Christ’s. The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God (Romans 8:16). This deep witness and conviction in your spirit is the basis of your faith in God and Jesus Christ whom He sent. This inner conviction strengthened multitudes of Christian martyrs through all the ages when they were tortured to death for their testimony and unyielding faith in Christ.
How do you become a Christian? That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame. For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls on the name on the Lord shall be saved (Romans 10:9-13, emphasis added).
If you are not a Christian or not sure if you belong to Christ but believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died for your sins and God raised Him from the dead that you may have eternal life in Him, pray this prayer out loud with me, meaning every word that you are going to say. “Dear Lord Jesus, I am a sinner and therefore in myself have no access to God. I confess you as my only door to God. Please come into my heart and make your home in me. I believe with all my heart that you died for my sins and that God, Your Father, raised You from the dead that I may have eternal life in You. I accept you both as my Savior and Lord meaning that through the measure of faith You have given me I will follow You wherever you may lead; now and forever, so help me God. I confess that I choose live above death. Please record my name in Your Book of Life that I may live and not perish. I confess that I can do nothing of myself so grant me grace to always please You. I believe that based on the faith in my heart and my verbal confession that now I am born into the family of God. From now on I will know you as my oldest Brother and God as my Father. From this moment on I am part of the family of God and my interests and loyalties are forever with You. Amen.”
John Robert Stevens in his book (This Week, Volume III, 1972, p. 25-26) described a Christian as follows: “To be a Christian, as I understand Christ, means the acceptance of the absolute authority of Jesus in all of my life. It means that in everything that I am and do when I eat and drink, when I buy and sell, when I work and play, when I read and think – that I take Jesus as my Master. It means that I enthrone Him as King in my affections; that I subject my friendships to His dominion; that I conduct my business and intellectual and social life under His inspection and direction. It means that my ruling passion – the passion that shall absorb all other interests, shall be to live my whole life under the sovereignty of Jesus. It means that I honor His name above every other name, and place obedience to Him above every other obligation.
To be a Christian means that I am no more my own man, but Christ’s man. It means the giving myself away to Him, so that I have no more right or title to myself; so that I have no more claim upon myself, and am no more at my own disposal. To be a Christian means to belong body and soul to Christ, now and evermore, for Him to do with me as He wills.
Hence, it means that in being Christ’s man, I am set free from all fear. My joy must be in doing His will – in being His slave; in the confidence that whatever comes to me when following Him is His doing. In a real sense, I make Him responsible for my life. I am responsible for following; He is responsible for leading and keeping. It can be none of my business what happens to me, what I gain or lose when I follow Him. That is Christ’s business. It is His to command, and mine to obey. I am sure that He will not waste a fragment of my life if I let Him possess it and direct it. I am also sure it will be mainly waste, friction, vain striving and misdirected effort, sickening failure, and defeated ambition if I try to direct my own life. My part as a Christian is not to find out the opinions of men, but to keep my eyes fixed on Christ: to let my mind dwell on Him, having a constant mental vision of His character; to make His life the food on which my soul shall live; to make His gospel the text book and the authority by which I stand and fall.”
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