Who is a Christian?

About two weeks ago one of the men in the Friday morning Bible study that I attend at Tom’s house asked this question — “what criteria define a Christian?” I think that is how Tom phrased the question to me. I obviously wasn’t there because I am in NY. Anyway, Tom sent me the question by email and said he would be interested in my thoughts. The following is my attempt at answering the question, which I reposed as “who is a Christian?” (Sorry about the length of this post, but like most of the topics I write about they can’t be captured in 500 words or less. At least, not by me).

After thinking about the question off and on for a while I came to several conclusions. First, it is a great question. Second, I don’t think there is a simple, neat answer. Kind of like asking “what is the Gospel”. It is more than the path to salvation, or what Dallas Willard calls “the Gospel of Salvation”. It is that, but much more. Jesus says “I must go and preach the Gospel of the Kingdom of God”. So the Gospel is more complex than our salvation and involves the Kingdom of God and God’s plan of restoration for all of creation, beginning in this world now and extending into eternity. And I have a role to play, which is part of what it means to be a Christian. A lot to take in. I think “who is a Christian” is sort of like that — more complicated than we normally think.

For sure, a Christian is someone who follows, trusts, obeys, believes in Jesus Christ, and grows in His likeness — we call this person a disciple. It is not necessarily someone who goes to church regularly, attends a Bible study, prays a lot, and reads other books about Jesus. I think you can do all of these things and not be a Christian. A Christian will do these things, but doing these things does not mean you’re a Christian. And we don’t become a Christian through these, and other works. I read somewhere that we become a Christian through our failures. I see that as a kind of reverse works. God can use our failures, sins, and suffering to draw us closer to Him, but these aspects of our lives do not, in and of themselves, make us a Christian.

The word ‘Christ’ is the Greek word for the Hebrew word ‘Messiah’ meaning ‘anointed or chosen one’. Jesus Christ was the anointed one sent by God to institute the Kingdom of God on earth. Jesus said “The Spirit of the sovereign Lord is upon me. I have been anointed to preach the good news (Gospel) to the poor.” Later, Jesus defines the Gospel as the “Gospel of the Kingdom of God”. So, to me, a Christian is an anointed follower of Jesus — a disciple, but more than the meaning that word generally conveys. A Christian has been given power and authority (the anointing) to participate with God in accomplishing His eternal purpose — to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world. Paul refers to our anointing when he writes “He anointed us, set His seal of ownership on us, and put His Spirit in our hearts…” (2 Corinthians 1: 21, 22). Just like Jesus, the Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon us, we have been anointed.

I also had the thought that the word ‘Christian’ ends with the letters ‘ian’ just like the word ‘Houstonian’. To be a Houstonian means that I live in Houston, I am familiar with Houston. Houston is my home. I know my way around the city and many of my perspectives on life are shaped by my experiences here. Also, I have loyalty to my city. Don’t ask me to compare life in Houston with Dallas. In a sense, the same is true of a Christian: I live in Christ and Christ lives in me. I have the mind of Christ, according to Paul, which means I can know Jesus and Jesus can know me. My outlook on life is shaped by my belief, obedience, and devotion to Him.

In my opinion a Christian is most fundamentally a Kingdom man or woman; someone who is intentionally and passionately doing their best to live in the Kingdom of God. We cannot earn Kingdom citizenship through our own merits. We can never be that good. We don’t enter the Kingdom through suffering. We can never suffer enough for that. We enter the Kingdom freely through the only door available to us — Jesus, the door into the Kingdom. Through His atoning death we have been given the free gift of Kingdom life; we have permission to enter because, and only because, of what He has done on the cross. In my opinion, if you are not living, at least to some extent, in the Kingdom of God you are not a Christian. “But seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness and all the other things will be added unto you as well” (Matthew 6:33). We must seek and this must be the first thing that we do in our walk with Jesus.

If this is true it makes understanding the Kingdom of God a big deal. Jesus never really defined the Kingdom, but He sure talked a lot about it. More than that, He demonstrated what Kingdom life looks like. Central to that life, as Jesus demonstrated it, is healing, deliverance, wholeness, and love. In fact, Paul tells us that Kingdom of God is not a matter of talk, but of power” (1 Corinthians 4: 28). And power to Paul means signs, wonders, miracles, and healing. For now I would define the Kingdom of God as the rule and reign of Christ in our hearts for the purpose of releasing His Kingdom into the world.

When we enter the Kingdom of God we are given gifts. These include: the indwelling Holy Spirit, a transformed heart, power and authority, healing and wholeness, and spiritual gifts like the gift of healing, prophecy, and teaching among others. A Christian has these gifts and manifests them in his or her life. Here is a good question: can we receive these gifts if we are not living in the Kingdom of God? This question has bothered me for a while; at this point my answer is “no, you cannot”. These are Kingdom gifts for Kingdom people. Paul tells us in Romans 8 that if we do not have the indwelling Holy Spirit we do not belong to Jesus.  Is the reverse true: if you do not belong to Jesus, you cannot have the indwelling Holy Spirit? I would say “yes”, that is correct. Can the Holy Spirit dwell within us if the kingdom we live in is the kingdom of self? I think the answer is “no, it cannot. Can a person who claims to be a Christian live predominantly in the kingdom of self? Yes, but that person is not living a Christian life.

How do we enter the Kingdom of God? Paul says that “if we confess with our lips that Jesus is Lord and believe in our hearts that God raised Him from the dead, we will be saved” (Romans 10: 9). When we believe that Jesus is who He says He is — the anointed one, the Messiah who has come to bring the Kingdom — the door is open. But we must choose to enter in. That is really our work — we must choose and in my experience that choice is rooted in a passionate desire to enter the Kingdom. God will not generally push or pull us through the door. The good news? You don’t have to be good and you can never be too bad to enter. These criteria have nothing to do with entrance into God’s Kingdom. “Ask, seek, and knock and the door will be opened unto you.” We must ask, we must seek, and we must reach that decision point where we say “yes, I want to live in the Kingdom of God”, raise our arm, and hammer on the door. And it will open, not because we are worthy in our own right, but because we have a savior who waits on the other side of the door to let us in. But entering the Kingdom, really entering, means that we leave another kingdom behind: the kingdom of self, which is also the kingdom of the world (which is really a kingdom under Satan’s rule). And not everyone, like the rich young ruler, is ready to make this choice. It is, of course, what Oswald Chambers means when he says “we must give up the right to ourselves”. We must repent. This is required to enter and live in the Kingdom. And if I am right, it is a requirement to become a Christian.

It is right here, in this moment, that being a Christian is a ‘matter of life and death’. We choose life – Kingdom life – which is the abundant life of Jesus. We choose death – death of those things (those counterfeit gods) which we had previously chosen in the kingdom of self to give us the value, acceptance, connection that we so desperately needed to live (or so we thought). We crucify those gods in our hearts. Entrance into the Kingdom of God is free, living in the Kingdom of God is costly, it daily requires work. It is costly because it requires that we crucify those old desires, that old nature that keeps wanting to drag us back into the old kingdom. It daily requires work because we must take out the hammer and nails, dig the hole, hammer that old spirit of pride or lust or whatever onto the wood, and raise it up for all to see. No matter how committed we are to the Kingdom of God, stuff keeps coming at us. To be a Christian means that we don’t just make the decision to enter the Kingdom of God one time; we make the decision to live in the Kingdom every day. Thank God that in the Kingdom of God, one of His gifts is the indwelling Holy Spirit, our counselor and helper (among other things). It also means that we don’t make these choices every day perfectly. We fail, often frequently. But we are committed to Kingdom life. We confess, we repent, we step back into the Kingdom of God, and we keep on moving on the journey deeper into God’s heart. (By the way, this willingness to kill or die to those things that gave us pleasure in the kingdom of self but ultimately would bring us death is the opposite of the phrase we hear so much today “it is my right to…”. It is ‘my right…’ has come to mean “I want it, therefore no one can tell me I can’t have it”. Unfortunately for our society, it is increasingly becoming the cry of a vocal segment of America).

One more thing about being a Christian. One of the deepest desires of every human being is to be known and accepted. We want to be known by others. And not only known, but accepted and loved for the person we are known to be in the deepest and most complete sense. In fact, we cannot experience or give love if we are unknown. But most of us hide a large part of who we are from others and even from God because of the fear of rejection and shame. Being known opens the door for us to know others. This is true of our relationship with God.  Although it is scary, in the deepest parts of our hearts we all desire to be known by God and we want to know Him. It is impossible for us to know God unless we are willing to be known by Him. As one author put it, and this is true in my life for sure, “you cannot know God if you do not experience being known by Him. The degree to which you know God is directly reflected in your experience of being known by Him.” (Curt Thompson, ‘Anatomy of the Soul’. Great book. Check it out). Perhaps another way to say “I am a Kingdom man” is to say “I am known by God and I know God”. Not completely or perfectly and not “I know about God”, but I know God and I am known by God. And do not confuse ‘know’ with knowledge. These are two different ways of knowing. You can have knowledge of me, but not know me. Same with God. You can have left-brain knowledge of theology and the Bible and not ‘know’ God.

Knowing and being known requires vulnerability. I must let down my guard. I must let God and others into these dark, hidden places. This is scary for many reasons, not the least are fear of rejection, shame and, giving others power over me. But there can be no healing without being known! And God desires our healing. I must trust Jesus and believe that I am who He says I am — His beloved. When I receive the Father’s love, when I know deeply in my heart that I am the adopted son of my Father, that I am adopted into His family, and that I can never lose this legal status, I will begin to open my heart to Him. And as I do that He will open His heart to me in ways that a non-Kingdom person cannot understand or experience. As I open my heart to God, it becomes easier to open my heart to others because I find my value and acceptance in God and so the ‘fear of man’, which is fear of rejection, no longer dominates my thoughts. You can often meet a person for the first time and know immediately that they are a Christian by the openness of their heart and the lack of fear in their life. Christians walk with a deeper sense of peace and joy than non-Christians.

This vulnerability requires another condition of Kingdom life — humility. Jesus sits on the throne of the Christian’s life ( I confess Jesus as Lord). Again, not perfectly or completely, but all Christians are on the journey, moving in this direction. Every day He takes up more and more of that place as I cede that territory to Him. The sign that this is happening? I become harder to offend each day. The unoffendable heart is the heart of Jesus sitting on the throne of my life. The other marker is holiness. I am growing in holiness on this journey to go deeper and deeper into God’s Kingdom and God’s heart.

There is one more critical aspect of being a Christian. A Christian is someone on a mission. A Christian has a purpose beyond themselves, beyond their personal growth and relationship with Jesus. A Christian joins with God to accomplish God’s ultimate and eternal purpose: the restoration of God’s Kingdom back to its original condition, function, and purpose. A Christian is using the power and authority given to him by God daily to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world. A Christian is God’s ambassador as if God is reconciling the world to Himself through the Christian (see 2 Corinthians 5: 18-21). God is restoring the world; literally releasing Heaven into earth, through us. A Christian has one or more ministries; I don’t see how I can be a Christian unless some part of my life is involved in this work.

And so, as a Kingdom man or woman, committed to God and His purpose, of course I will worship in my church, small group, and anywhere else the Spirit leads me; of course I will read and study my Bible, and of course I will spend a certain number of hours of my life each week in ministry and prayer. But I do not do these things out of duty or obligation. I do not do them to feel good about myself or to get in good with God. And I don’t feel ashamed if these things do not always get done. I do them because I am a Kingdom man with a passion to know and be known by God and to join Him in His work. I do them because I am a Christian.

So to me, a Christian is a believer, an anointed follower of Jesus, who has freely chosen to live in the Kingdom of God and therefore has rejected life in the kingdom of the world and self, has received and operates in the Kingdom gifts, is known by and knows God, walks in humility, and has a purpose beyond himself — to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world as God directs and grace allows. A Christian does none of these things perfectly or completely, but still, these are critical and growing components of a Christian’s life, and they should be visible to the people around him.

“Therefore, since we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming Fire” (Hebrews 12: 28, 29)