What Is a Christian?

What Is a Christian? by Bill Keller

One of the things that has greatly troubled me is the number of people who say that they believe in God, say that they are Christians, yet have no problem supporting choices that are clearly defined in God's Word as sin. Jesus said it best when He said that "No man can serve two masters."

The Christian faith is not a smorgasbord where you can pick and choose what you like. You can't claim to have faith in Christ, yet support the things that the Bible speaks against. To borrow a political term, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A CHRISTIAN MODERATE. Either God is real or He is not.

Let me first clarify what a Christian is. A Christian is a person who has made the personal choice to repent of his sins and asked Jesus into his heart by faith (John 3:16; Romans 10:10; Ephesians 2:8-9).

It is a person's personal faith in Christ that makes him a Christian.

The church you belong to cannot save you.

Having a priest or pastor baptize you when you were a baby did not save you.

Living a good life does not save you.

The fact that your parents are Christians cannot save you.

Only making the choice to repent of your sins and ask Christ into your heart makes you a Christian.

If this is something that you have never done, the Bible says that "TODAY is the day of salvation." God has made it so easy, but it is a choice that only YOU can make.

Once you have gotten to this point, the next step is that you MUST accept the Bible as God's inspired, inerrant Word. It is IMPOSSIBLE to be a Christian and not accept the Bible as God's Word.

To come to Christ by faith, you have accepted that this is God's plan to give His creation, which is separated from Him because of their sin, a way to come back into a relationship with Him. This is God's ONLY plan!

ONLY faith in Jesus Christ can saves you because it was Jesus Christ who God sent to die for your sins! He was God's perfect sacrifice to give fallen man a way back into everlasting fellowship with Him. So, if you accept THAT, then you have to accept the ENTIRE BIBLE as God's inspired, inerrant Word. It can't be only partially right!!!

The Bible makes it very clear that "There is no other name given under heaven whereby men might be saved."

NO OTHER NAME. NO OTHER BELIEF SYSTEM.

The Bible is an all or nothing proposition, it is either ALL true or NONE of it is true. This is very serious: You can't live your faith with one foot in the world and one foot in the church. You either believe it all, or you don't believe any of it. Either God is true, and we can count on EVERYTHING He says, or there is no god and we are the most foolish of all people -- there is NO MIDDLE GROUND!!!

This is where so many Christians break down. They simply don't want to let go of the things of this world. The fact is, this life is only a brief journey. When it is over, the things of this world will be gone, and the ONLY thing that you will be left with is the fact that you have Christ in your heart, or you have rejected His love for you. PERIOD.

Many of you feel that Christianity is intolerant for excluding so many good people. The fact is, the only thing intolerant about the Christian faith is its refusal to accept sin in a person's life.

Would a loving parent feed his child a plate of garbage?

Of course not.

Why?

Because he loves him and knows that it would be very harmful to him. When

God says don't sin, He is saying don't eat a plate of garbage because it is harmful to you!

As for the Christian faith being exclusionary. That is the FARTHEST thing from the truth. The Bibles says, "Whosoever believes in Him shall not perish." Whosoever is potentially EVERYONE. Everyone has the opportunity to accept Jesus Christ into his heart and accept God's free gift of everlasting life. I don't find that exclusionary, but INCLUSIONARY!

I will be praying above all that you realize how serious it is to make a full and total commitment of your life to the Lord Jesus. The fact is, when we ask Him into our hearts, the Bible says that it is no longer our life, but that it belongs to Him.

We surrender our life to Him and all He died to achieve for us becomes ours. Our lives become new -- we are "born again," out of darkness into light; out of deception into truth; out of callousness into love.

I realize as much as anyone how unpopular our faith can be to the world that we live in. The sad fact is, much of that world is lost, hurting, and living without ANY hope. They have chosen to reject God and live life the way they want to. God has given everyone the free will to make that choice.

Sadly, though, no matter how they may appear on the outside, inside they never experience the true joy, peace, and abundance that this life has to offer. As they get older, they start to realize that there has to be more to life, and in their search for God, get caught up in every kind of New Age, crazy philosophy that exists. What they are REALLY looking for is the peace that ONLY comes from a personal relationship with Christ.

As Christians, you, me, each one of us who name the name that is above all names, is called to be a light to this dark world. We can let our light shine brightly only when we are living fully, 100% for JESUS. If you believe that God is real, THEN LIVE EACH DAY FOR HIM!!!