CHRISTIAN-DEFINITION
A Christian
is not a person who believes in his head the teachings of the Bible. Satan
believes in his head the teachings of the Bible! A Christian is a person who
has died with Christ, whose stiff neck has been broken, whose brazen forehead
has been shattered, whose stony heart has been crushed, whose pride has been
slain, and whose life is now mastered by Jesus Christ.
John
Piper
The Christian
is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God.
What is the Christian? Everywhere the man who, so far as
he comprehends Jesus Christ, so far as he can get any knowledge of Him, is His
servant – the man who makes Christ a teacher of his intelligence and the guide
of his soul – the man who obeys Christ as
far as he has been able to understand him... I would know any man as a
Christian, would rejoice to know any man as a Christian, whom Jesus would
recognize as a Christian; and Jesus Christ, I am sure, in these old days
recognized His followers even if they came after Him with the blindest sight,
with the most imperfect recognition and acknowledgment of what He was and of
what He could do.
Phillips Brooks
To be a
Christian is not only to believe the teaching of Christ, and to practice it; it
is not only to try to follow the pattern and example of Christ; it is to be so
vitally related to Christ that His life and His power are working in us. It is
to be “in Christ,” it is for Christ to be in us
Martyn Lloyd-Jones
Spiritual Depression – Its Causes and its Cures, 1965, p.
293-294, Used by Permission from Elizabeth Catherwood (daughter).
How do you know
whether a man is a Christian? The answer is that his mouth is “shut”. I like
this forthrightness of the Gospel. People need to have their mouths shut,
“stopped”. They are forever talking about God, and criticizing God, and
pontificating about what God should or should not do, and asking, “Why does God
allow this and that?” You do not begin to be a Christian until your mouth is
shut, is stopped, and you are speechless and have nothing to say.
Martyn
Lloyd-Jones
Romans: Atonement and Justification, 1970, p.19. Used by Permission.
A Christian
is one who recognizes Jesus as the Christ, the Son of the living God, as God
manifested in the flesh, loving us and dying for our redemption; and who is so
affected by a sense of the love of this incarnate God as to be constrained to
make the will of Christ the rule of his obedience, and the glory of Christ the
great end for which He lives.
Going to
church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to a garage makes you
an automobile.
It is a very
common supposition that it is an easy thing to be a Christian. And if to be a
Christian were nothing more than going to a place of worship, indulging in
pious emotions, subscribing to religious institutions, and professing certain
religious opinions – the supposition would be correct – for nothing is more
easy than all this! But if the spirit of true piety is poverty of spirit,
humility, self-abasement, forgiveness of insults, patience under provocation,
penitence, meekness, purity, peaceableness, thirsting
after righteousness – then must it be obvious to everyone who knows his own
heart, that to be a true Christian is the most difficult thing in the world!
Christian Love, 1828.
If
conversion to Christianity makes no improvement in a man’s outward actions – if
he continues to be just as snobbish or spiteful or envious or ambitious as he
was before – then I think we must suspect that his “conversion” was largely
imaginary.
A Christian is
not one who simply buys “fire insurance,” who signs up just to avoid an
unpleasant after life. A Christian…repeatedly, is one whose faith expresses
itself in submission and obedience. A Christian is one who follows Christ, one
who is committed unquestionably to Christ as Lord and Savior, one who desires
to please God. His basic aim is to be in every way a disciple of Jesus Christ.
When he fails, he seeks forgiveness and wants to move forward. This is his
spirit and his direction.
John MacArthur
The Gospel According to Jesus, © John MacArthur, 1988, p. 197.
Religion is
us trying to prove to God how important we are...spirituality is being humble
enough to allow God prove to us how important He is.
I want the
whole Christ for my Savior, the whole Bible for my book, the
whole Church for my fellowship, and the whole world for my mission field.
I am His by
purchase and I am His by conquest; I am His by donation and I am His by
election; I am His by covenant and I am His by marriage; I am wholly His; I am
peculiarly His; I am universally His; I am eternally His. Once I was a slave
but now I am a son; once I was dead but now I am alive; once I was darkness but
now I am light in the Lord; once I was a child of wrath, an heir of hell, but
now I am an heir of heaven; once I was Satan's bond-servant but now I am God's
freeman; once I was under the spirit of bondage but now I am under the Spirit
of adoption that seals up to me the remission of my sins, the justification of
my person and the salvation of my soul.
Thomas Brooks
True
spirituality manifests itself in certain dominant desires.
1. First is
the desire to be holy rather than happy.
2. A man may
be considered spiritual when he wants to see the honor of God advanced through
his life even if it means that he himself must suffer temporary dishonor or
loss.
3. The
spiritual man wants to carry his cross.
4. Again, a
Christian is spiritual when he sees everything from God's viewpoint.
5. Another
desire of the spiritual man is to die right rather than to live wrong.
6. The desire
to see others advance at his expense.
7. The
spiritual man habitually makes eternity-judgments instead of time-judgments.
I initially
examined Christianity in order to write a book making a mockery of it…After
extensive research, however, I discovered that
Christianity is not a religion of men and women working their way to God
through "good works." Nor is
it obedience to a pattern of religious ritual.
Rather, it is a relationship with a living God through His Son Jesus
Christ. To my amazement, I was
confronted with a person, not a religion.
Here was a person who made staggering claims about Himself, along with
profound claims on my life. Jesus was so
different from what I had expected.
Other religious leaders put their teachings out in front. Jesus put Himself out in front. Others would ask, "How are you
responding to my teachings?" Jesus
asked, "How are you related to me?"
Jesus, a Biblical Defense of His Deity,
Here's Life Publishers, Inc., p. 9.
When applied
to Christians, holiness or sanctification is not in the first place an ethical
concept although it includes an ethical aspect. It denotes first of all a soteriological truth that Christians belong to God. They
are God’s people. This is why the most
common use of hagios in Paul is to designate
all Christians as saints – the people of God.
A Theology of the New Testament, Eerdmans,
1993, p. 564.
I am never
ashamed to avow myself a Calvinist; I do not hesitate to take the name of
Baptist; but if I am asked what is my creed, I reply,
"It is Jesus Christ."
Christian History, n. 29.
A
Christian is a perpetual miracle.
C.H. Spurgeon
Indwelling Sin. Sermon from Job 40:3-4.
As a
third-century man was anticipating death, he penned these last words to a
friend: “It's a bad world, an incredibly bad world. But I have discovered in
the midst of it a quiet and holy people who have learned a great secret. They
have found a joy which is a thousand times better than any pleasure of our
sinful life. They are despised and persecuted, but they care
not. They are masters of their souls. They have overcome the world. These
people are the Christians—and I am one of them.”
Moody Bible Institute
Today In The Word,
June, 1988, p. 18.