For me, in simple terms, a Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ. <\/p>\n
These days we have watered down the term “follower” because in social media, we can follow someone with a “click”.\u00a0 And then when that person posts something, we get notified via email.<\/p>\n
If we even read our emails anymore, everything is automated.\u00a0 Impersonal.\u00a0 Detached.<\/p>\n
The term “Christian” is also used as a “religious” description. It’s like a nationality, where do you belong, what part of the world did you come from.\u00a0 It’s used like a “label”.\u00a0 But to the truest sense of the term, the word “Christian”, when used as a label, doesn’t mean anything.<\/p>\n
It’s just the way mankind may be able to label you.\u00a0 Kind of like if you are an American, or Asian, or Japanese, or Canadian, or Indian, etc. Yeah, one can be a Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Atheist, etc. There may be perks to having a certain type of nationality – traveling perks, etc. Belonging to a certain type of man-made religion may “group” you into a body of “doctrines” that a member of that religion must follow and live up to.\u00a0 It’s belonging somewhere.<\/p>\n
But the label doesn’t describe the essence of what it is to be a Christian.\u00a0 To be worthy to be called a follower of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n
A whole lot of people who call themselves Christians, may have been born into such a family who practiced the “rituals” of Christianity.\u00a0 And then be just as lost and confused as an unbeliever.<\/p>\n
A Christian is a follower of Jesus Christ.<\/strong><\/p>\n One cannot follow anyone they do not like.<\/p>\n One cannot follow anyone they do not know.<\/p>\n One cannot follow anyone they do not respect.<\/p>\n God draws people to Him.\u00a0 God sends people, or resources, to share God’s gospel to them.<\/p>\n And those who seek Him, will find Him.<\/p>\n “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.” We see this quote everywhere.\u00a0 A whole lot of Christians share it.<\/p>\n But until , and UNTIL, God breaks one’s hardened heart, can that message actually sink in, in the life of\u00a0 that person.<\/p>\n We can’t impress God.\u00a0 We can’t fool God.\u00a0 He knows us inside out.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n God knows we are imperfect.\u00a0 God knows that left to our own, there’ll be perpetual chaos.\u00a0 Such is the god-less world we live in now.<\/p>\n Being a “follower”\u00a0 has requirements.<\/strong><\/p>\n If we follow traffic rules, or government rules or school rules, that “may” make us a good citizen or student, but we may just be following such rules so that we don’t get penalized, or so we can get the diploma, but is our “heart” in it?\u00a0 Or do we do it just to stay out of trouble?\u00a0 Or to try to subscribe and conform to what everybody else is doing?<\/p>\n What are God’s rules?\u00a0 There’s just 10.\u00a0 Ten!\u00a0<\/strong> And they are God’s commandments, they’re not just mere suggestions:<\/p>\n 1) Love God above all. You shall have no other gods. (Exodus 20:3)<\/p>\n 2) You shall not use the name of the Lord God in vain. (Exodus 20:7)<\/p>\n 3) You shall honor the Sabbath and make it holy. (Exodus 20:8)<\/p>\n 4) You shall honor your parents.\u00a0 (Exodus 20:12)<\/p>\n 5) You shall not kill.\u00a0 (Exodus 20:13)<\/p>\n 6) You shall not commit adultery.\u00a0 (Exodus 20:14)<\/p>\n 7) You shall not steal.\u00a0 (Exodus 20:15)<\/p>\n 8) You shall not bear false witness.\u00a0 (Exodus 20:16)<\/p>\n 9) You shall not covet your neighbor’s wife. (Exodus 20:17)<\/p>\n 10) You shall not covet your neighbor’s goods. (Exodus 20:17)<\/p>\n Let me look up the exact scripture:<\/p>\n The Ten Commandments<\/p>\n Then God spoke all these words, saying,<\/p>\n 2 \u201cI am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.\u00a0\u00a03 \u201cYou shall have no other gods before Me. 4 \u201cYou shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. 5 You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, 6 but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.<\/span><\/p>\n 7 \u201cYou shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.<\/span><\/p>\n 8 \u201cRemember the sabbath day, to keep it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.<\/span><\/p>\n 12 \u201cHonor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the Lord your God gives you.<\/span><\/p>\n 13 \u201cYou shall not murder.<\/span><\/p>\n 14 \u201cYou shall not commit adultery.<\/span><\/p>\n 15 \u201cYou shall not steal.<\/span><\/p>\n 16 \u201cYou shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.<\/span><\/p>\n 17 \u201cYou shall not covet your neighbor\u2019s house; you shall not covet your neighbor\u2019s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.\u201d\u00a0<\/span> And there we go… these rules have been around since the Old Testament days.<\/p>\n And humanity still always would fall short of it!<\/p>\n And then we wonder …<\/p>\n … why aren’t my prayers being heard?<\/p>\n Separation from God God is not our bellhop, that when we pray, He grants immediately.\u00a0 That’s having something like a “microwave mentality”.<\/p>\n That we sin against this Holy God and then expect Him to hear our prayers, just because we prayed.<\/p>\n No His hands are not too short!<\/p>\n Can you imagine that?\u00a0 A God with short hands?\u00a0 I actually laughed so hard when I heard about that verse of scripture the first time, and then I looked it up and studied it more, I was just laughing at myself and how foolish I have been all these years!<\/p>\n I foolishly and erroneously thought before that when I prayed for something, and He doesn’t grant it, that “maybe there was no God.” How foolish I was!<\/p>\n It took a man of God to share such a scripture, to plant that seed in me to actually WANT to look it up myself in my bible.<\/p>\n He hears our prayers when we come to Him through Jesus in repentance of our sins first<\/em>.<\/p>\n That we acknowledge and reverence Him as God, first<\/em>.\u00a0 Our God.<\/p>\n I guess some of my prayers in the past didn’t even reach as high up to the ceiling because I then had iniquity, some sin in my life, that God wanted me to take care of first.\u00a0 Back then I didn’t even know how to pray right!\u00a0 (And Jesus taught how we should pray).\u00a0 How do we know that we have broken God’s rules?<\/p>\n Do we even know God’s rules?<\/p>\n How?<\/p>\n Go through that 10 commandments above, SEE and you will KNOW for yourself, because only you will know, if you have broken any of God’s 10 commandments, His rules.<\/p>\n Not the government’s, not the school’s rules.\u00a0 The Holy God’s rules, the one who created you and cause your heart to beat, and your eyes to see these words on your screen.<\/p>\n Then what?<\/em><\/p>\n REPENT.<\/p>\n What is repentance?\u00a0 It’s our acknowledgement of wrong doing, acknowledgement of a mistake, acknowledgement of our\u00a0 sin, AND apologizing and asking for God’s forgiveness AND not doing the same old sin or mistake again.<\/p>\n Ever wonder why we all keep on doing the same old mistake over and over again?\u00a0 Almost like an addiction?<\/p>\n It’s called slavery.\u00a0 We humans are slaves to sin.\u00a0 Repetitive sins.<\/p>\n When you read the bible enough, you will learn about “evil strongholds”, about demon possession (yes demons are real, just look at how much evil there is around us! Crimes and such!)<\/p>\n That’s why we need a Savior.<\/p>\n A Lord and Savior.<\/p>\n That’s why Jesus our Saviour said this …<\/p>\n “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, Jesus, that whosoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life.”<\/span> If we believe, follow, obey Jesus, and ask for His help, to save us from our sins, He Will!\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n Because it IS God’s Will to save all of us!<\/p>\n God will draw us to Him.<\/p>\n He could use people, resources, a blog post, a forum, SOMETHING, to get you to want to know Him.<\/p>\n But because we are all sinful, even if we pray, because of our inquities, unless we repent and turn from our wicked ways, He won’t hear us.<\/p>\n Jesus said this..<\/p>\n Jesus said to him,\u00a0\u201cI am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” <\/span>– John 14:6\u00a0 (NASB). Jesus Comforts His Disciples \u2013 (John 14:1-6)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Being Born Again<\/strong><\/p>\n A follower of Christ, a Christian, is one who has been born again.<\/p>\n Sorry, there’s no other version or denomination of Christianity.\u00a0 Jesus said so.<\/p>\n 3 Jesus replied,\u00a0\u201cVery truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n 4 \u201cHow can someone be born when they are old?\u201d Nicodemus asked. \u201cSurely they cannot enter a second time into their mother\u2019s womb to be born!\u201d<\/p>\n
\n– John 3:16 (NASB), The New Birth \u2013 (John 3:1-21)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n-Exodus 20:1-17 New American Standard Bible (NASB)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n59\u00a0Behold, the Lord\u2019s hand is not so short<\/strong>
\nThat it cannot save;<\/strong>
\nNor is His ear so dull<\/strong>
\nThat it cannot hear.<\/strong>
\n2\u00a0But your iniquities have made a separation between you and your God,<\/span><\/strong>
\nAnd your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear.<\/span><\/strong>
\n3 For your hands are defiled with blood
\nAnd your fingers with iniquity;
\nYour lips have spoken falsehood,
\nYour tongue mutters wickedness.
\n4 No one sues righteously and no one pleads honestly.
\nThey trust in confusion and speak lies;
\nThey conceive mischief and bring forth iniquity.
\n– Isaiah 59:1-4 (NASB), Evil and Oppression \u2013 (Isaiah 59:1-13) KJV<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\n– John 3:16 (NASB), The New Birth \u2013 (John 3:1-21)<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n