CHRISTIAN-DEFINITION
The Christian
is a person who makes it easy for others to believe in God.
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).
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.
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.
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.