“The person who
loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; the person who loves
son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And whoever doesn’t take up his cross and
follow Me is not worthy of Me. Anyone
finding his life will lose it, and anyone losing his life because of Me will
find it.” (Matthew 10:37-39)
One of the most fruitful discussions
you can have with yourself occurs when you answer the question: What does it
mean to be a Christian? How is a
Christian defined? That question, by
necessity, leads to a lateral question: How did Jesus define a Christian since
He is the Author and Finisher of our faith?
After all, it’s His definition that counts.
Jesus defined a Christian
essentially in the verse above along with its preceding paragraph. A Christian is a believer, follower, and
disciple of Jesus, one who loves Him and follows Him regardless of anything or
anyone else, one who does not seek his or her own life, but seeks the
Lord. A Christian is one who is
committed to a faith relationship with Jesus that impacts every aspect of his
or her life.
This concept may challenge some of
the thinking in our society. For
example, one popular idea today suggests that people “make Jesus a part of your
life.” The idea behind this is that we
each have a life segmented into various facets – family, work, social activity,
education, religion, and so on – and thus we are to invite Jesus into our
hearts to make Him “a part” of our lives.
We give Him a room in the house, so to speak. When you hold this idea up to the light in
one hand, and then hold the previous idea up to the light and compare the two,
you discover that they do not, in fact, match.
This being the case, maybe we need to
consider what we can do to help others see the reality of the true teaching of Jesus
so they can make some adjustments in their message. Jesus does not want to be “part” of your life;
He wants to be “central” to your life.
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