Questions

Today I was filling out an application to volunteer at the local crisis pregnancy center.

One of the questions was "What is a Christian?"

Now this should be a pretty easy question for me to answer right?

I have been going to church my whole life.

I've been a Christian since I was 11 years old.

I took Bible and theology classes in college.

I read the Bible daily and talk with Stephen about theology all the time.

"What is a Christian?"

My mind went blank.

I felt like a moron.

Then I had a flashback.

About three years ago Stephen and I took our church's membership class.

The first thing the pastor did was hand us index cards and asked us to answer this question,

"What is the gospel?"

I wanted to sound smart in my answer so I thought I would use some of the big theological words I had heard Stephen use.

Words like, "imputation" and "propitiation" and "sanctification".

So I wrote my answer and felt all smart and handed it in.

After that class Stephen asked me what I had put down.

I told him my answer, very proud of my vocabulary.

Stephen looked at me and said "That's what Catholics believe."

Dang it!

So now here I am with the question "What is a Christian?" and two little lines to answer it on.

I learned my lesson and steered clear of the big words and tried my best to give a good answer.

I think those kind of questions are so difficult because there are the simple obvious answers like,

"A Christian is someone who believes Christ is their Lord and savior."

But that really doesn't cover it.

It's like someone asking "What is the United States?" and answering,

"The US is a country located in North America."

It just doesn't cover it.

There is a more theological answer such as,

A Christian is someone whose heart has been regenerated from its sinful depraved state to understand the glory of God and recognized their sinful nature. This person then repents of their sin and believes that Christ is the son of God who came to earth and died on the cross and rose again to cleanse us of our sin so that we might be in relationship with God. A Christian then continues to live their life striving to glorify God in all they do and turning away from sin.

But its also more than that,

A Christian is someone who lives life every single day with the knowledge of God as their maker and savior, with a joy in the fact that they have been saved inspite of their sins, with a love for all people as God's created beings, with a hatred of those things in which grieve God and a never failing hope of eternal life with Him.

Even that doesn't cover all it is to be a Christian.

I guess what I am getting at is that to define a Christian takes more than what can be put into a two sentence dictionary description.

Just to be safe I should probably run my answer by Stephen to make sure its not Jewish or Muslim or anything.