What is a Christian? Is it simply a person who calls himself a Christian, or do you first have to accept responsibility, and if so, what is the responsibility you have to accept?
A Christian is someone who realizes their sinful nature, repents and ask Christ to forgive them. Then
starts living a Christ-like life and following God's Word and Laws as God commanded while building a
personal relationship with Christ.
Many repent. Many accept Christ as their Saviour but many never follow Christ, His teachings or
build a personal relationship with Him.
Many think Christianity is a religion. It is not. Christianity only has this name due to man's need to
define and categorize everything he knows about. In doing so, man imposed his limited knowledge
of God and God's Word to force God and God's Word into one of his little boxes of definition so man
could feel as though he controls everything.
Christianity is a personal relationship with the Living God. It is not man's attempt to know God. It is
God's attempt to restore man's relationship with Him. God reached out to man because God wanted to
have a relationship with man - his creation - like He did when creation first started. But man was and is
stubborn and prideful and still standing between God's blessings and and still has a need for control over
a universe that God has proved repeatedly that only He controls.
There were many in Jesus day that claimed to be religious. They did all the right things but Jesus said,
"You do all the right things but your hearts are far from me". Jesus said this because being a Christian
is about a personal relationship with the Living God and having a heart for Him
that He knows. It's
about pushing your self, your goals, your dreams, your aspirations aside and seeking God's plan for you,
God's dreams for you, God's goals for you and God's inspirations for you to attain to.
Knowing God is not about following the rules in the Bible. You can follow those rules till the day you die
and you will still go to hell. Knowing God is about knowing the Person Of God. By knowing the Person of
God, you learn Who He Is and develop a love for Him. Out of this love for Him, you read His Word and
follow His Laws, precepts and concepts because you love Him as God, not because He is God.
God's Word says, "If you love me, you will keep My Commandments". It does not say if you keep My
Commandments, you will learn to love Me. Just as those feelings of fondness that you feel for a new
relationship cause you to focus on the person of your attention and devote your time to learning all
you can about them, so should your relationship with God be.
God seeks a relationship with each person that is based on love. If you love something, you seek it.
If you love someone, you seek them. If you love someone, you seek to spend time with them. If you
love someone, you seek ways to show them how much you care. It is this same type of love of God that
God seeks in each of His Children and He looks forward to the time you spend with Him as you read His
Word, learn about Him and implement His Commands, precepts and concepts in your life.
Many Christians do not read God's Word very often and some not at all. The Bible is the Bible but it
is also The Living Word of God because God's Word and not just His Word, it is Him also. God said, "In
the beginning was The Word and The Word was God".
By reading God's Word, we are spending time with God and learning Who He Is. After reading God's
Word, we should take a few minutes to allow God to speak to us. Reading God's Word is communication
between us and God. Contemplating on God's Word after studying it while sitting quietly and clearing
our mind of the daily clutter that fills our minds while asking God to send His Holy Spirit to minister
to us is God speaking to us.
God does speak but not usually in a voice. It is more of a burden He lays on your heart to do something
or a thought that seems to dominate your thoughts most of the time. As you learn more about God and
spend time with Him, you start to understand how He does things just as you see a pattern of how a
friend you currently have does things. We all have a personality that can be used as a guide by others
to predict how we will most likely respond in a certain situation. God is no different but there is one
exception. God tells us Who He Is and what He wants in writing.
To know how your friend will respond in a certain situation, you must spend time getting to know them,
how they perceive things and their value system. God is no different. Remember, we were created in
His likeness. We have a need for others in our life because we were never meant to be alone just as
God was never meant to be alone without man. It is the loneliness which God felt that was left once the
relationship between God and man was severed that caused God to reach out to man and save all He
could that would allow Him to save them.
God's main interest in any one of us is a personal relationship with Him just like Adam and Eve had
thousands of years ago. Following His Word is a demonstration of our heart-felt love for Him, not a
demonstration that we can follow some heartless, cold rules. If following rules were the case, there
was no need for Jesus to die to forgive our sins since we already had the Ten Commandments to follow.