I’ve been sitting on this devotional I read last week and can’t stop thinking about it. So, why not blog about it?
If someone walked up to you and asked what it means to be a Christian what would you say?
According to Dr. Ed Young, “A Christian is a Christ-follower. He is someone who has said ‘I confess my sins to the Lord, turn from them, and ask Christ to come in and take over my life.'”
That’s simple enough right? I wonder why we make it so hard. Do we make it hard? After reading Merriam Webster’s definition I would have to go with yes. The religion derived from Jesus Christ, based on the Bible as sacred scripture, and professed by Eastern, Roman Catholic, and Protestant bodies.
Several years ago a friend of mine was giving the commencement address at a Kentucky high school. A young man in his congregation was the class valedictorian, and following the ceremony he said to my friend, “Pastor, I want to talk to you. I want you to tell me what it means to be a Christian.” This pastor was surprised at the question, since the young man had attended church all his life. But he agreed to meet with him the next morning so they could talk. You’ve probably guessed by now that meeting never happened. The young man died that night in an automobile accident. His father recounted that his son regained consciousness before he died, and asked his Dad the same question he had asked my friend. His father could not answer.
Chewing on this devotion for a while made me realize that sometimes we add way too much theology to a simple question when a complex answer is not really necessary.
If someone asked you the question, could you give the answer?