I thought about this today...What does it mean to be a True Christ Follower? First of all, I do not want this question to lead to us thinking about others, but rather ourselves. I know it is human tendency for us to want to size up the person sitting down the aisle from you, but as Christians we have no place standing in judgment of who is and who isn't a true Christian. That is for God to determine, our opinions are mere speculation because we cannot see the inner heart of a person, only God can judge perfectly.



However, we are responsible for taking a sober look at our own life to determine whether we are a true disciple of Jesus Christ or not...

As far as I understand, being a true Christ follower involves 4 things.....belief, trust, faith, love..... These four things toward Jesus and toward others make us true Christians. So easy right?

It actually is. We make it so much more complicated because we like to earn our way into God's good graces, so many times we set up rules for us to gage ourselves by. But believing, trusting, having faith, loving, are not easily measured. These 4 things are also very intertwined if you think about it. You cannot truly love if you do not trust, you should not believe someone who you don't trust, you do not love someone without some amount of faith because loving involves taking a chance. In some form or fashion these four words are connected, especially when considering Christianity and the Bible. Jesus seems to use them interchangeably in the Gospels as do the other New Testament writers.

Simply put these things are relational. Being a true Christ follower means being in a healthy growing relationship with Jesus Christ and learning to be in healthy growing relationships with the people God has brought into your life. As far as I'm concerned this is the basic foundation of being an authentic Christian. So maybe we should all take a look at ourselves...Are we in a healthy growing relationship with Jesus Christ? Are we growing healthier each day in the relationships and interaction with our friends, families,enemies? If so, than we can rest assured that we are genuine in our faith.

Now some of you may wish to argue the essential Christian doctrine, that to know whether or not you are a Christian is determined by whether or not you have repented of your sins, trusted in the work of Jesus on the cross and been filled by His Holy Spirit. This would be many peoples answer as to whether or not they are true Christ follower or not. I agree. The only problem is that to a person who is not churched or does not know any religious jargon then these things are impossible because they do not know the meaning. On the other hand a simple statement of the fact that one must have a intimate and growing personal relationship with Jesus Christ cuts right to the root of what repentance, the cross, and the infilling are all about, relationship. A right relationship.

Does your day to day life back up your claim of being a Christ follower?

I hope that we can all be authentic Christians, and we can all know the redeeming work of Christ on the cross and the blessing of being filled with His presence, but these things are empty beliefs unless we see them practically, being lived out in our day to day life.

The thermometer to gage whether your faith is hot or cold is found by taking an honest look at your personal daily relationship with Christ and those around you.

How would you describe your daily relationship with God and others?