What's So "Christian" about Christianity?

At what point does something become "Christian?"  Is there a certain level of activity that once passed the activity then becomes a "Christian" one?  Or is there a critical-mass, a minimum number of Christians needed to be present in order to make any activity "Christian?"  Or, is Christianity merely a quality of any activity that Christians perform?  Is all music Christian or is there a specific genre to be called "Christian?"

While the above questions may seem tedious if not frivolous, the questions might not seem so ridiculous whence we consider how flippantly activities may be deemed "Christian."  But it is precisely this thing that many Christians find themselves trying to ask on a regularly basis.  It has practical ramifications, for the Christian is called to live out his/her Christianity in every aspect of that life.  So the question becomes real at the moment of turning belief into lifestyle.  How we answer this question, then, is important.

There is a propensity to consider any thing that a Christian does to be, by that regard, a "Christian" thing, as if the fact that a Christian was involved transforms one activity from a non-Christian one to a Christian one.  To belay the Christian-ness of any activity to the adherents of that activity would be to amputate Christianity from the very thing that makes the Christian Christian.  For that, one only needs to examine the prefix that predicates Christianity: Christ.

We should never forget this utterly irrevocable truth: Christ makes Christians.  It is Jesus of Nazarene as conferred by the Gospels that changes a person from non-Christian to Christian.  The determinant of Christianity is, as it were, Christ Jesus Himself.  So, to answer any of the aforementioned questions, it is at the very moment that Christ Jesus takes precedent and primacy that anything becomes Christian.  In the end, what makes anything "Christian" is its interaction with Christ.

If Christ is met with praise and penitence then it is, in fact, "Christian."  The involvement of Christians is rendered a moot consideration, for they do not make Christianity; Christians are entangled with Christianity only as Christians connect with Christ Himself.  This is it.  It should also compel us to think of what makes up Christianity in terms not concerned with Christians, it turns out, but Christianity is defined by its connection to Christ.

Christianity: Not just another Spiritual Philosophy

One of the great and forceful enemies to Christianity has, in recent decades, been the ever growing propensity to deem Christianity as merely another of the many possible and tenable philosophies that is offered to the modern world.  To think of Christianity categorically of the same kind as that of any other philosophical posture or spiritual idea is akin to amputate Christianity from, as it were, Christ.

On the contrary, Christianity is not and has not ever been a set of abstract philosophical postulations severed from any actual reality.  Christianity is and has always been a set of historical facts, actual space-time history that demands a verdict on the part of the listener: faith or not.

Christianity should not be allowed to devolve into mere postulations of theology as if abstract theological postulation could ever come close to the actual Christianity that is found in the person and resurrection of Jesus the Nazarene.  Theology, though good and necessary exercise, is grounded solely in Christ.  To sever Christianity from Jesus, the actual factual person of history, would be a travesty and would relish it impotent and irrelevant in the stream of spirituality.

Instead, Christianity is intimately and necessarily tied to the actual events of history, for it is in these events that God has stepped into creation and enacted His grace in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazarene.  These things should never leave our lips as we discuss Christianity and its power to transform lives for God!

Denying Self but not like Lot's Wife

In Luke 9, Jesus lays it all out: "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself daily and take up his cross and follow me."

This is no mean task.  God is not mincing words, this is unequivocal language.  I think of the alternative: not denying self and not taking up the cross to follow Christ.  What would this mean?  Surely it would mean not only the utter lack of God's presence but, by extension, the cold reality of hell both in this physical state and unto eternity.

I think of the famous story of Lot's wife (Gen 19:23-26): turning back at the life she was leaving.  Not only did she not receive the blessings that God had intended for her family leaving Sodom, but she was turned to a pillar of salt for her disobedience and her lack of faith.  She was not willing to deny herself; the irony is that it cost her her life.

This begs the question: how have you done today at denying yourself?  Have you taken up your cross recently?  All the words of Scripture are all for not if they are not implanted into our hearts.  It is not enough to read them, to recite them, to memorize them; we need to live the words.  Christ's commands need to become the very way we live.  Let us strive for this very thing!

Jesus and the need for Two Natures

Suppose you were swimming in the river one afternoon.  As you entered the water, the current becomes stronger than you expected and you are quickly pulled under the water and swept down stream.  You struggle to catch your breath between your head bobbing up and down in the water.  Suddenly you feel a hand grab your arm and pull you towards the bank.  As you reach the side, you recognize that the man saving you has one foot on the bank and one foot in the river, he is simultaneously in and out of the water, holding your arm and pulling you out of the water.

This scenario is kind of like Jesus.  The river is unrepentant human life, pulling every person down stream to eternal death.  The bank is godliness and eternal salvation.  The man grabbing your arm is Jesus.  Being fully man, He had one foot in the river of human life.  But being fully God, He also had one foot firmly in perfection.  It is this fact of His nature which makes salvation possible at all.

Only a man can submit and repent from sin.  But because of man's sinful nature, this is the very action that man is incapable of making.  On the other hand, God never has to submit because He is omnipotent and He never has to repent because He is morally perfect, yet it is only God who has the ability to repent.  Therefore, the only way man can repent is if God actually empowers the repentance.

Enter Jesus.  Jesus, being both God and man, is the bridge that connects the finite sinfulness of man to the infinite perfection of God.  Jesus was sinful because of His God-ness, but it was His human nature that made His experience applicable to humans through faith.  Jesus, by way of His very nature, overcomes the chasm of human sin.  Jesus laid down His attributes and suffered a horrendous death to bridge this gap.  We should always keep this in our hearts as it is the definition of grace.

The Source of True Hope

In the most recent Batman film, The Dark Knight Rises, the villain, Bane, sets out to torture Batman by confining him to an underground prison while he terrorizes Gotham.  The key to Batman's agony, as told us by Bane, is that this prison is holed several stories beneath surface, totally subterranean save for a skylight, a small opening in the cave-like prison that offers the inmates the slightest hope of escape.  It is this hope that causes the true despair for the inmates of this prison, and it is this hope that is used to torment Batman.

The hope that Bane refers to is a hope of escaping that, barring an incredible physical act of utter will, will never come to fruition.  The chance of hope that strengthens today to crush tomorrow because it fails to followthrough.  This is the sort of hope that can break hearts, ruin relationships, and destroy lives.  But there is another sort of hope, another source for hope, that is sure and true: the Lord God Almighty.

The Lord is a sure hope not because of what He offers (though He does offer hope), rather the Lord is by His very nature, a source of true hope.  God is infinite, omnipotent, wise beyond measure, and limitlessly good.  The reason He is the ultimate source of all hope is because of who He is.  Any source of hope is but a lowly counterfeit compared to the Lord by way of nature.

Hope promises.  The trueness of any particular source of hope is based on whether that hope can deliver on its promises.  For this, only God can fulfill hope's requirements, because only God can actually and definitively fulfill His promises.  It is because of this that we should place our hope in Him and only Him.

Can't Get Out of Work and Why Would You?

We live in a world that is obsessed with the search for comfort and ease.  Consequently, laziness and sloth are at endemic levels as no longer, as it has been in the past, do people reward their hard work with relaxation.  Instead, serenity is considered a sort of birthright, an entitled dispensation.  It is as if work has been deemed evil as laziness has been exalted as good.  

Scripture, however, has another way of dealing with work altogether.  For Scripture, particularly for Solomon, work is not just the drudge of daily life but it is one of the true joys of life (Ecc 5:12, 18).  The reason that work is a joy has far less to do with the what of work than with the why.  The why of work is that God has given us the joy of using our senses and exercising our dignity in the reception of the goods that come from work, i.e. wage, satisfaction, et al.

This is not to say that work and the provision that work affords should ever be allowed to eclipse God either in exaltation or in faith.  Instead, work is to be rightly considered as a component of the grace that God has given to humanity.  Our work is but a medium for God's grace to be conveyed to us.  Let us then take great joy in work and to always give God praise for that joy!

Phil. 4:11-13: Contentment found in Christ

One of my favorite verses penned by the apostle Paul reads: "Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me." (Phil 4:11-13).

Life full of undulations, waves both of plenty and of little, of happiness and of sadness, and of health and of sickness.  Solomon writes that there is a time for everything in the introduction to Ecclesiastes. This reality can lead to a sense of vertigo, to be sure, but God has provided us the ultimate source of stability regardless of circumstance: Himself.

Believers have been given the ultimate gift of grace that is access to the presence of God through faith in Christ.  His presence is an ever-present comfort, a constant stabilizing companionship, and the only source of true contentment under any condition.  This is more than a nice sentiment; it is a reality that should compel how we live and handle the tempests and deserts of the human life.  Let us always take joy and comfort from this reality and let it seep into the depth of our hearts!