C. S. Lewis
I need to back up for a minute. I’ve been using the term “believer” to describe myself as one who believes in Jesus. While listening to the end of The Gutter by Craig Gross, I began to realize that this just isn’t loving. He doesn’t talk about that, but he talks about meeting pre-Christians. Now, that’s a loving way to describe people who don’t yet know Jesus. I remember hearing this from a speaker or reading it in a book one time. I began using that term and people made fun of me. I guess somewhere in the fray, I forgot. I really forgot my purpose and began thinking my purpose had to do with following the path of people around me, settling for mud pies, as CS Lewis would say, instead of the “way more than I could ask or imagine” from My God.
Just like calling the “church” a building undermines and confuses the role of the church, Christ’s Bride, if I’m a believer, then I’m calling those who don’t believe in Jesus unbelievers. Out of the gate, I sound offensive and unloving. Good thing God caught that before I got too far.
Gross does talk about the term “Christian” meaning so much more or so much less than it should. It’s actually “little Christs.” Wow. There’s something to meditate on. This label holds ill meaning for me. The world’s view of a Christian is often times the exact opposite of biblical truth. I heard a missionary to Lebanon talk about how “Christian” denotes a political party there. He and his colleagues carefully began referring to themselves as followers of Christ or Christ followers to separate themselves from any political affiliation. We have those same issues in the United States of America. I may hold some of the same beliefs as “Conservative Christians,” but I am foremost a follower of Christ and that means love comes first. If I call myself of follower of Christ, there can be no fuzziness over where my loyalties lay.
This post from XXXChurch.com pretty much proves my point: Joe asked for help to get out of the sex industry, here’s an excerpt from what he says, “To be honest with you I was real leery about contacting a ‘Christian’ organization for help as I have been involved in the church and in ‘Christian’ Ministry only to be very let down and disillusioned in the end when I really needed the love and support of Christians the most.”
See? Semantics is important. Sometimes calling yourself a Christian is like calling yourself a Texan or an Italian or worse, a Republican or Democrat. You were born into it and it’s just who you are.
But God cannot be contained in any of our labels or terms. And He will not be contained within the confines of what you or I think. Let’s all get this straight, OK? God loves everyone. His love is for everyone and Jesus died for everyone. He wishes that no one should perish and catch the repetitiveness in these verses of scripture: ”I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” John 10:28-30
For me, that is not judging those who call themselves Christians, but do the most unChristlike thing: Persecuting followers of Christ for going into the gutter. But we’ll explore that topic in the next post.
