Christianity Defined
This video is going to explain exactly what it means to be a Christian.
Most of what you are about to hear and see is simply Scripture arranged in a way to cut through doctrinal and opinionated ideas of what it means to be a Christian.
Most church goers think that because they study the Bible, listen to sermons or just believe on Jesus that they are saved from hell. Such is a very wrong misconception that Jesus solidly rebuked.
Jesus said: You diligently study the Scriptures because you think that by them you possess eternal life. These are the Scriptures that testify about me, yet you refuse to come to me to have life. (John 5:39-40)
To rightly claim the label of Christian one must as Jesus stated come to Him fully surrendered so that He can make the scriptures alive and truthful.
Most refuse to come to Jesus to get the life of scriptures because they would have to walk as Jesus walked.
God is clear to be a Christian is to walk as Jesus walked. To walk in the style, manner and exact way Jesus walked while on earth.
Whoever claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did. (1 John 2:6)
Jesus did not walk a Christian religion Jesus walked by God’s power.
Jesus surrendered his body, will and all to allow God to will and work through Him.
This is what it means to walk as Jesus walked.
Note that Jesus declares that he does “nothing” on His own.
So Jesus said, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am the one I claim to be and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.” (John 8:28)
What Jesus taught was that those who follow Him would understand that after He died on the cross, that they too must pick up their cross and do nothing on their own.
A true disciple of Jesus dies to himself so that God’s power may teach him or her what the Bible mans.
A true disciple of Jesus dies to himself so that it is God’s Holy Spirit speaking through them.
Indeed, a true disciples whole life is found in dying more to self everyday that the new life of Jesus may be more alive through them.
This is why Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.” (Matthew 16:24-25)
Denying yourself and picking up your cross means that you give up your life to do God’s will.
Doing God’s will means surrendering to God’s power in such a way that you strive to speak only what God say, serve as God would work the serving and believe the Truth as God reveals the truth.
And just not only speaking only what God would have you say, but “how to say it.”
Jesus said: For I did not speak of my own accord, but the Father who sent me commanded me what to say and how to say it. (John 12:49)
This surrendering to God’s will requires a great deal of “fear and trembling” over the concern a believer might act, believe or love according to their thoughts and will.
Unless you have this fear and trembling odds are you are just a religious Christian.
Paul a New Testament teacher wrote that is the fear and trembling that allows God to “will and to act according to his good purpose.”
Let us read his words: Therefore, my dear friends, as you have always obeyed–not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence–continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose. (Philippians 2:12-13)
Jesus walked by not doing anything he wanted to do.
Jesus did not preach in the way He thought best.
Jesus did not pray in the prayers He wanted to pray.
Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. (John 5:19)
Jesus walked by not having any judgment about a single thing but letting God’s judgments work through Him.
When Jesus teaches that we are not to judge He means that we are to be dead to our judgments that God’s judgments may be in our hearts.
In short, when a disciple of Jesus speaks any truth it should be that they are only messengers, not the judge.
Jesus could have the judgements of God because he did not seek to please himself.
We sin because we judge to please ourselves.
Jesus gave Christians the example they should walk in when He declares: By myself I can do nothing; I judge only as I hear, and my judgment is just, for I seek not to please myself but him who sent me. (John 5:30)
To have no opinions of our own is no easy lesson to learn because it requires that we “hate” our opinions and judgments.
To walk as Jesus walked means that we hate where we want to go, hate what we want to do, hate what we want to love and hate what we want to hate.
You see our loves, likes and judgments are so sin stained that they must be fully hated before God’s pure, selfless love can flow through us.
The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. (John 12:25)
The reason Jesus said that we must hate our lives is because we are totally, completely 100% sinful.
Every motive is selfishly tainted with sin.
Every action, religious or now, is too polluted by sin to be acceptable to God.
This is why we must be born again.
All have turned away, they have together become worthless; there is no one who does good, not even one. (Romans 3:12)
This is why everyday and every hour, down to the second a Christian gives his or her body to God so that he might will and act through though them.
The reason you see so much hypocrisy and sin in the Christian church is because this offer of surrender is rejected and individuals are powerless to walk as Jesus walked.
It is only after we hate our own life, pick up our cross, deny ourselves and being to follow Jesus that our minds can be transformed to understand what God’s will is.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God–this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
No doubt this sounds difficult and may even sound totally different from what you have heard from the pulpit.
This is because the vast majority of church goers want to claim to be Christian without picking up their cross and suffering with Jesus.
Many a Christian and many more Christian Churches will be downright offended when they hear this.
On hearing it, many of his disciples said, “This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?” Aware that his disciples were grumbling about this, Jesus said to them, “Does this offend you? What if you see the Son of Man ascend to where he was before! The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life.” (John 6:60-63)
Take note that Jesus just said that the religious flesh of man counts for nothing.
Pray Christian prayers a million times in the flesh but it is still zero.
A million times zero is still zero.
Claim Jesus is your Lord a million times in the flesh if you so wish, but a million times zero is still zero.
So it goes with tithing, serving, judging, loving, pot-luck fellowship a million times zero is still zero.
In the next scripture you will see Jesus reminds and repeats that apart from a surrendered life connected to Him we can do nothing.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.” (John 15:5)
There are lots of Christians down through history that did Christian looking things but in the end it all came out to a big nothing.
What gets a true Christian from nothing to something is how they suffer against the sins in their lives.
To walk as Jesus walked is to have the same attitude as Jesus.
Jesus suffered, hurt, bleed against sin while on the cross.
In the same way as God will led and work it will be required of you to get ready to suffer as God wills against your sin and the sins of worldly men.
Therefore, since Christ suffered in his body, arm yourselves also with the same attitude, because he who has suffered in his body is done with sin. As a result, he does not live the rest of his earthly life for evil human desires, but rather for the will of God. (1 Peter 4:1-2)
Only those Christians who have suffered in their bodies against sin are able to live for the will of God.
He who suffers against his pride will walk in the humility of Jesus.
He who suffers against sexual immorality will have the purity of Jesus.
He who sufferings against a sinful world will have God’s love for the world in their hearts.
To have the resurrected life of Jesus flowing in your life you will have to walk as Jesus walked into prayer with God.
To honestly have the power of the Holy Spirit working in your life you will have to walk into the prayer closet and wrestle away your will and power.
Then Jesus went with his disciples to a place called Gethsemane, and he said to them, “Sit here while I go over there and pray.” He took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee along with him, and he began to be sorrowful and troubled. Then he said to them, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death. Stay here and keep watch with me.” Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.”
Jesus kept wrestling until He had overcome His will so again we read:
He went away a second time and prayed, “My Father, if it is not possible for this cup to be taken away unless I drink it, may your will be done.” (Matthew 26:36-42)
Finally and this is the most important part as it concerns the matter of loving God and others.
Because, The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. as Galatians 5:6 just declared.
And the only way to love as Jesus loved, to walk as Jesus walked in living a live of love is to pick up your cross, deny yourself while hating the way you love so that the Holy Spirit of God can work, will and teach you how to love God and others.
Let it be said of all honest Christians that it was God who taught them how to live a life of love.
A love not taught from a Bible made with ink, but by the Living God discipling each person as to what love is and how that love needs to be expressed each day.
Now about brotherly love we do not need to write to you, for you yourselves have been taught by God to love each other. (1 Thessalonians 4:9)
The power to live the Christian life is in what we just looked at.
Be sure of this apart from Him, walking as He walked, we can do nothing godly.
This video is presented by www.luke1425.org because Jesus said that anyone who would come after Him must first sit down and count the cost.
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