Missing the Truth for the Beliefs

This is my view this morning and though I’m a lapsed blogger, I felt like this was a good day to post.  Currently it is 6:38am and my house is also silent, which almost never happens, so I have to take advantage, right? 

This week, I’ve spent some time thinking about the Christian writers and speakers who have shaped my faith.  One day maybe I’ll post about the books that God has used to change my heart in addition to the Bible, but yesterday I saw a shocking Twitter post from one of the big time writers of my generation, and I can’t get it out of my mind.

Joshua Harris is the author of I Kissed Dating Goodbye. Can I get a nostalgic grin from any other millennials out there??  The 1997 read was transformative for so many Christian youth in my teen years.  Now, admittedly, I never read it – I did read bits and pieces of it and found him way too conservative for even the goody-two-shoes teen I was, but it’s like the True Love Waits curriculum and promise rings for me – I can’t help but smile when I think of it and all the youth group conversations that came out of that season of life and those texts.

So yesterday, when I saw an article highlighting a Twitter post about how he has renounced his faith, I was sad and so surprised.  What surprised me most was his line, “By all measurements that I have for defining a Christian, I am not a Christian.”  He wrote several reasons why and highlighted how he felt his views of many different issues have been wrong and how he felt the need to repent of that and walk away from Jesus as a result of his shifting views on people and practices.  I don’t want to get into my thoughts on his views – the issues he mentions and my views on them are FAR too nuanced to do justice in a blog post.  However, I couldn’t get past the line “by all measurements that I have for defining a Christian.”

I wish Joshua and I were friends because I would call him and ask, “What are your measurements??”  He is a pastor of a church and a Christian author.  I would assume that he knows the ONLY measurement for defining a Christian is someone who has put complete faith in Jesus Christ for their salvation.  For me, that means first acknowledging that we are sinful people (hello, I think we all know that, right?  Who has not done something they regret?  Hurt someone’s feelings, said something they shouldn’t, lost their temper, been jealous….??).  Next, it would mean understanding that because God is holy, he can not be in the presence of sin – he can’t accept something that is not as holy as himself.  But he is also entirely loving, so he provided his own son to pay the penalty for our sin so that when we accept Christ’s gift of salvation, we take on Jesus’ righteousness.  It means that now, when God looks at us, he only sees Jesus.  If we have accepted Jesus’ gift of grace on the cross, we look exactly like Jesus himself.  Colossians 1:22 puts it, “Yet now he has reconciled you to himself through the death of Christ in his physical body.  As a result, he has brought you into his own presence, and you are holy and blameless as you stand before him without a single fault.”

From the Twitter post, it sounds like Joshua is defining being a Christian by all kinds of practices and beliefs that are publicized in mainstream media and possibly even from pulpits and in small group settings.  I wanted to post today and say, “Don’t miss the forest for the trees!”  Yes, Christians talk a lot about beliefs – some biblical and some not (sorry about that one!).  But the ONLY measurement for defining oneself a Christian is faith in Jesus Christ. I had a conversation with a girl one time and she said that she was a Christian because those beliefs lined up closest to what she personally thought – after exploring several religions, it seemed to most fit.  That makes absolutely no sense.  

Christianity is not about practices – it is only about Jesus.  

It is true that being in a relationship with Jesus Christ and better knowing the words God has given us in the Bible will likely change us – just as being in a marriage or being a parent or being a best friend will change us.  But any change in behavior or beliefs after coming to faith do not make us a Christian any more than the changes we make after marriage make us married.

To anyone who has defined Christianity by what they see on the news or see in picket carrying protesters or have even experienced by Christians themselves, I would ask that they shift their mindset.  Becoming a Christian is ONLY about knowing Jesus.  That is absolutely 100% it.  And after you know Jesus, you will be changed as you grow in understanding of him and as you read God’s word, but don’t assume that your changes will look like your Christian friend’s changes, and don’t assume they are RIGHT in their changes.  Personally, I know that as I’ve grown in my faith, God has shifted my heart and changed my view about several issues, and I also know that he will continue to do that. 

To Christians who call themselves that because of their practices or a myriad of beliefs that they think define Christianity, I’d ask them to make the same mindset shift.  If you believe yourself to be a Christian because you try your best to be kind and loving, because you desire to be like Jesus and want to serve others, because you like his teachings as represented in the New Testament, because all the things your pastor says about how to live jive with you, you’ve got the wrong view of Christianity. Readjust and rethink because a great tragedy would be to live the words of Matthew 7:22-23 one day: “²² On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ ²³ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”