Friday, June 20, 2008

Christian or christian?

"But alas, how little fit for heaven are many who talk of 'going to heaven' when they die, while they manifestly have no saving faith, and no real acquaintance with Christ. You give Christ no honor here. You have no communion with Him. You do not love Him. Alas! what could you do in heaven? It would be no place for you. Its joys would be no joys for you. Its happiness would be a happiness into which you could not enter. Its employments would be a weariness and burden to your heart. Oh, repent and change before it is too late!" ~J.C. Ryle

To get directly to the point, are you Christian or merely christian? Is God the end to your means, or is He the means to your end? If He is not the all sufficient, all Sovereign, soul satisfying, Creator of the Universe in your life, than do you really believe He is God? Do you only speak Christianity, or do you live it? My fear is that most American Christians are not Christians at all, they are christians with a little c, meaning they acknowledge God as God with their mouths, but not with their lives. They see God as some sort of giving deity, that all they have to do is ask for anything and it will come. That is not Christianity, that is idolatry, exalting gifts above the Giver. This is the "prosperity gospel" this is not the Gospel. The Gospel is Christ and Him crucified. Not a clean bill of health.
"'Come let us reason together,' says the Lord, 'Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be as wool.'"* Go to God, and reason your salvation out with Him, be completely assured of it, do not be as a wave tossed about in the sea. Know that God is your Savior, and soul satisfying shelter. Do not lean on the belief of your parents, or friends, make your faith your own. Not just a Sunday morning, Wednesday night belief, but an all the time belief, that God is great and greatly to be praised. That God is the Gospel. "When we celebrate the Gospel of Christ and the love of God, and when we life up the gift of salvation, let us do it in such a way that people will see through it to God himself." **
* Isaiah 1:18
** John Piper "God is the Gospel" p 16

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