Hope In Love

Ephesians 4: 4

1 Corinthians 12: 4 – 6

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I think I come off as being a little judgemental sometimes…and maybe i am.  the thing is though, i’m learning about what this whole christianity/christ-following thing is all about and as God reveals stuff to be it’s becoming natural to share with others so that they can also grow along with me, but on the other hand, sometimes God shows me stuff and it may not be for everyone so my word is not the be all and end all of christianity (test the spirits and all)… Christianity is not about proving to anyone else that I’m a christian but about my relationship with God.

So a few weeks ago, after talking to my sister about the same thing the week before, we were talking about what is christianity. i.e. what does one have to do to become a christian, and this is what we came up with (i’m paraphrasing):

God is holy, perfect: created a perfect world
man is fallen, sinner: needs rescueing
Jesus is God as man: perfect as God, vulnerable as man
death and resurrection: took on my sins and died, beat death and rose
eternal life aka abundant life aka relationship with Christ
grace and faith = it is through Gods grace, by faith, ALONE that you are saved

then
following: it’s a free gift, but it costs you your whole life.

my summation to my sister: So If you know that you are a sinner and acknowledge Christ’s death on the cross to save your sins then you are a Christian.  If you strive daily to love God and love people as yourself then you are a Jesus follower.

don’t know if it’s possible to be one and not the other though…

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this part partly ispired by my sis and partly by a dude from my cell group: the dude said he really finds it hard when people say how on fire he is for God cos most of the time he doesn’t even feel like there’s a spark.  I feel like that a lot…

my sister sent me an email saying that she can see that my friends and i “are die-hard Jesus Followers”…i, in my reply email, said “what makes you think that?  I was thinking about this last night.  You are a people person, I’m not.  God has gifted you with that and that’s what he wants you to do…bless other people.  So just because I go to church more and do more stuff in the church doesn’t make me closer to God, God is just using me differently.  He’s called me to the church…he’s called you to the world.

Not better, just different.

One God, One Spirit, working in and through all.”