Are You are Christian?

I remember when I first moved to Charlotte, one of my friends (a native to the city) explained to me that it's not "if" you go to church, but where you go to church.  At one point the city claimed to have the highest number of churches per capita, and after living there for 5 years that does not surprise me.

 Havana, Cuba

Chicago, Illinois 

Heredia, Costa Rica

Going to church can become more culturally driven than spiritually.  Something that makes you a "good person," brings stability to your family, gives you a sense of eternal security, and makes you feel good for attending every week.  Unfortunately, I have seen that it doesn't necessarily mean you are a follower of Christ.**

Granada, Nicaragua 

Los Angeles, California

Santiago, Chile

So I have learned to stop asking the question
                                      "Are you a Christian?"

I have learned that just because someone may invest their time and energy into a religious institution, it does not necessarily mean they are Christ-followers.  And, on the contrary, some of the most Christ-like actions I have seen in my life come from people who do not profess to know Him.

In our world dominated by social media, we are constantly invited to share our opinions. There is a pressure to know our "stance" on every controversial topic.  There is an emphasis to verbalize what you believe over living out the actions that reflect (and verify) your beliefs. And it might just be making us more like the Pharisees instead of focusing on what Jesus actually told us to do.

The Pharisees were a strict Jewish sect that were overly obsessed the Law.  They constantly tested Jesus' authority and condemned him for "breaking the law," like healing someone on the Sabbath.  They hated him so much that they conspired to kill him.  They were so concerned with being "good Jews" that they missed seeing Christ for who He really was.  

Out of all of the things that made Jesus angry, it wasn't the sinners, it was the Pharisees.  It was the people that thought they were above sin, that only saw the sins of others, that didn't need Jesus. As Philip Yancey perfectly points out: 

“Christians get very angry toward other Christians who sin differently than they do.”

Jesus never pushed people to figure out their "beliefs."  He never took stances; He lived His life to love God and love others, ultimately to the point of dying for that love.  

So what does it look like to follow that?  And how do we and others know if we are really "Christ-followers"?

We will know it by the presence or absence of fruit in our lives.  We will know it by our love.  

San José, Costa Rica

Iloca, Chile

Chicago, Illinois

                                                    San Diego, California

Spring Mill State Park, Indiana

                           Our front yard

   

Guanacaste, Costa Rica

They will not know us by our stance on homosexual marriage, how we vote, the religious institution on our diploma, or what we do on Sunday mornings.  They will not know us by the articles we share online or the words we publish anywhere about what we believe.   

We cannot get so caught up in taking stances that we forget to do the one thing Jesus told us was most important: Love.  Loving so radically that even other "Christians" may judge us us, so revolutionary that our present culture cannot understand it, and so sacrificially that we put our own lives on hold for the sake of others.  

After all, Jesus never commanded us to believe in Him.  He told us to follow Him.  This is the kind of Christianity our world needs.  


**DISCLAIMER: I love the church and believe we are called to be a part of it.  Since it is made up of us, people who try to be like Christ but fall short every time, of course it gets ugly and loses focus; it is imperfect.  I believe that as Christ-followers we are called to live in Christian community and to love the church in spite of our ugliness.  

     

 Holy Week in Antigua, Guatemala

 Chiloé, Chile

 Charlotte, North Carolina