Are You A Christian?

What does being a Christian mean? Yes, there's the easy answer of following Christ. I guess I was thinking about this because I was thinking about someone whose idea of being a Christian is going to church. So they haven't gone to church in a while, and their idea of "being a better Christian" is that they need to go to church more often.

I contend that once you become a Christian, you're a Christian even if you never went to church. And if you think that just going to church more and listening more about God each week makes you a Christian...you're missing the story, and there is so much more you can have.

1. Being a Christian means extending any relationship you have with God after your death
Being a Christian is NOT about "saving your soul" or having eternal life. Really. Regardless of what the crazy people on the street corner yell at you.

The question is this: do you have a relationship with God already? Or do you tend to rely on yourself? Is God a friend and presence in your life, or are you like, "I'm good. I can handle this." and maybe God's in the background? The idea of eternal life is not about life like we imagine it - not living, breathing, doing fun things...that's all a part of it, but not all of it. The idea is, that relationship with God that we have now is going to continue past when we're dead. So if we want more of God in our lives, feel joy spending time with Him, there's no reason to think death will stop that. Similarly, if we're good on our own, without God, that will continue after death as well. That's what hell is - the absence of all the (good things that are) God.

So your trajectory after death continues what your mindset is in life. If you like spending time with God in life, it continues after death only moreso, which we call eternal life. So you don't become a Christian to get eternal life; that relationship with God is life, which continues after death if you want it to.

2. Being a Christian is about accepting that Jesus died for your [insert name here] sin
I grew up in church, and somehow I never got this. I got that Jesus died for the world's sins, and the world has had some pretty bad people. So at any given time there are some pretty bad people living - even if Hitler is already dead, there are murderers, and rapists, and extortioners, and the like. So I thought Jesus died to reconcile the body of people living on Earth to God, which included a bunch of bad people, and then that those who followed him would go to heaven. I was taught that we all made mistakes, which are sin, but surely my mistakes couldn't be that bad...could they? Heck, I never murdered anyone!

The point I had to realize is that even if I were the only person on Earth, it would necessitate Jesus dying on the cross to reconcile my sin. I cannot reconcile it myself, as every time I've wronged another person, I've also wronged God. A lot of times we have this conception of what "good" means, and we hold Jesus (and others, like Buddha) on a pedestal as shining examples of good morals. If only people listened to them! the wisdom goes. Or, another meme going around the internet is that all the moral teachers are saying the same thing. (*Exception: Jesus was the only one who claimed to be God). So, you have to figure if there's a God, he/she would be this shining example all the time. And so if that's the standard, there is no way anyone can meet it all the time. Ever.