What is a Christian?

 

What is a Christian?

 

We have a lot of answers for that. They revolve around things like the political viewpoint we hold to, the style of worship we like, the Bible translation we use, a particular theological doctrine we hold, or even the way we dress or look. We as humans have a lot of rules for what it means to be a Christian.

 

Jesus made it very simple in John 17:3, He said, “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.”

 

Being a Christian is knowing God and having a personal loving relationship with Jesus as Savior and Lord.

 

Ephesians 2:14-16

For He Himself is our peace, who has made us both one and has broken down in His flesh the dividing wall of hostility, by abolished the law of commandments expressed in ordinances, that He might create in Himself one new man in place of the two, so making peace, and might reconcile us both to God in one body through the cross, thereby killing the hostility.

 

God sent Jesus and through Jesus’ death on the cross reconciled us to Himself. Reconcile means to make friends again. There was an issue between humans and God; that issue was sin. Jesus’ death paid for the penalty of our sin by His death on the cross. Jesus’ death removes the issue of sin when we yield our lives to Jesus as our Savior and Lord, that makes everything between us and God right.

 

Out of our reconciliation with God through Jesus we get things because we now have a relationship with Jesus.

 

Romans 5:1

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

 

We get peace. It is not a peace that is conditioned by our circumstances, but a peace that is based in our relationship with Jesus as our Lord.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing peace, not as the world defines peace but as the kind of peace that Jesus gives us.

 

Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

 

We get joy and hope. It is joy that again is based not in circumstances, but in our love relationship with Jesus. It is a hope that is not just wishing, but a confident assurance in what God says being true and that God will do all He says He will do.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing joy and hope in Jesus as our Lord.

 

1 Corinthians 3:11

For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

 

We get a foundation, and that foundation is Jesus. According to Hebrews 13:8 Jesus never changes. So, we get a foundation that does not shift or change. We thus have a life built on a foundation that is stable and secure. Nothing else can give us that kind of foundation.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing stability and security with Jesus as our foundation.

 

1 John 4:8

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

 

We get love. God is love. He is not a God of love or a God who loves because, if He was, He might choose not to love us at any given time. He is love; that is who He is and He loves all of us, all of the time.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is experiencing the unlimited, no boundaries, no time limit love of God.

 

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

We get forgiven by God through Jesus’ death on the cross. We are forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus and given the command to forgive others as God in Jesus has forgiven us.

 

Raise the Roof and Remove the Walls is receiving forgiveness through Jesus’ death and then forgiving others as we have been forgiven.

 

Reconciled and Raising the Roof and Removing the Walls,

Joe