What is a Christian?
- Greg Laurie - http://www.wnd.com/2014/11/what-is-a-christian/
Greg Laurie reveals why genuine walk with God requires repentance
Some people think they are Christians just because they are Americans. I used to think that. Before I made a commitment to Christ, if you would have walked up to me and said, "Greg Laurie, are you a Christian?" I would have said yes. Why? Because I am an American. I didn't know what it meant to have a relationship with Jesus Christ; I just thought that being a Christian meant believing that a guy named Jesus Christ lived on this earth. That was the extent of it. And there are people today who think they are Christians for a number of reasons when, in fact, they are not.
You might be surprised to know that the first word to fall from the lips of Jesus Christ after he began His public ministry was repent (see Matthew 4:17). Now, there is an interesting word. What do you think of when you hear the word repent? You might think of someone who seems to be really angry - maybe someone who wears a sandwich board with flames painted all over it and stands on street corners yelling, "Repent!" It's a word that we don't hear very much today.
There was a man in Jesus' day who talked quite a bit about repentance. In fact, he was the cousin of Jesus Christ. We know him as John the Baptist or John the Baptizer. In the eyes of many, he was a radical and a revolutionary, even a troublemaker who was not content to leave well enough alone. He had a life and ministry that directly confronted people with the truth. He was not afraid to say what was right, whether people liked it or not.
Even so, John was a figure of national prominence in his day. It is worth noting that the Jewish historian Josephus actually devoted more space in his writings to the life and ministry of John than he did to Jesus Christ.
John burst on the scene when Israel had not heard from a prophet for some 400 years. Prior to that, there had been a progression of prophets from Moses to Samuel to Malachi. Then seemingly out of nowhere, after a long, eerie silence, John the Baptist arrived.
The New Testament book of Luke tells us that John's ministry took place during the reign of Tiberius Caesar, while Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and when Herod was the tetrarch of Galilee - all names that basically would be associated with wickedness.
John came at a strategic time in human history, when the kingdom of God was about to die, and he stood as a herald to proclaim the coming King. He was rocklike in his commitment and belief, causing Jesus to say of John, "What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed swayed by the wind?" (Matthew 11:7 NIV).
John was a man who stood his ground, and the heartbeat of his message was this: "Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father' " (Luke 3:8 NIV).Another way to translate this is, "Prove by the way you live that you have repented of your sins and turned to God. Don't just say to each other, 'We're safe, for we are descendants of Abraham'" (NLT).
In the original context, John was saying to these people, these religious Jews, that just because they were descendants of Abraham didn't mean they automatically had a relationship with God. Just because they had a birthright and an upbringing with certain values didn't mean they were walking with God. It is possible they were doing religious things outwardly but were lacking spiritually on the inside.
Some people today might say, "I was raised in a Christian home. I went to a Christian school. I go to church on Sunday."
That is fine. Thank God if you have been raised in a Christian home. Thank God if you have gone to a Christian school. Thank God if you go to church on Sunday. But here is the question: Are you producing fruit in keeping with repentance? In other words, is there clear evidence in your life that you are indeed a follower of Jesus Christ?
Many people today have essentially believed a watered-down gospel that deletes the message of repentance. They believe in an all-caring, nonjudgmental God who requires no repentance or a change in their lifestyle. They will say things like, "I believe in Jesus Christ, but my god is not judgmental, and my god would never send a person to hell. My god would never say that he is the only way to be forgiven. But I am a Christian."
You cannot have it both ways. You can't say, "My god is this and that" and make it up as you go.
This watered-down gospel may be the most dangerous plague that the church is facing today because it gives a sense of false assurance to the person who believes it.
The Bible says, "Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord" (Acts 3:19 NKJV), and "Truly, these times of ignorance God overlooked, but now commands all men everywhere to repent (Acts 17:30 NKJV).
The word repent means more than mere regret or sorrow. You can be sorry for something, especially if you reap the consequences of it, but not be repentant. The criminal who gets caught is sorry. But the question is whether that sorrow leads to change. Not necessarily. There are people who are sorry for reaping the consequences of what they have done, but they have never made any changes in their lives.
Real sorrow, according to the Bible, will lead to repentance. It will lead to change.
It is not enough to say, "I am a sinner." It is not even enough to say that Christ is the Savior. Those two need to come together. What we need to say is, "I am a sinner, and I am sorry enough for my sin that I want to stop doing it. Lord, I come to you now, asking you to forgive me for all the wrongs that I have done in my life. I repent of my sin."
Until you have taken that step, you are not there yet.
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