Where are you?

"The Christian does not live in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor; in Christ by faith, and in his neighbor by love."

-Martin Luther

 

Recently, I was part of a discussion on what it meant to be a Christian. Is it what we believe? Is it how we act? What makes up a Christian? How can someone who is not a Christian identify who is a Christian? For that matter, how can someone who is a Christian identify a brother or sister in Christ?

 

The discussion started by talking about the age we live in, where most people do not believe in God and live like "heathen." No one has any decency anymore. And how do we minister to such people?

 

The ironic thing is that many of these "heathen" do not want Christians to minister to them, because Christians are hypocrites. They are cold, judgmental, arrogant. It seems the whole world knows that Christians are called by Jesus to "love your neighbor as yourself," yet they often appear to be the very worst at it. While ostracizing gay people and others, church people are still getting divorced, arrested for child pornography, and so on and so forth.

 

So, does this mean Christians must first clean up their acts before they can truly be called Christian? If people in the church are actually hypocrites, what can define the body of Christ, and how is someone who desires to be a Christian supposed to act in regard to that?

 

This is about where we got in our discussion. It is a tough issue to work out; inside we are surrounded by hypocrites (maybe we are the hypocrites!) and outside we are surrounded by those who do not believe. So, what does it mean to be a Christian?

 

One person in our discussion talked about faith being a relationship with Jesus. And I think she is on the right track. We seek to answer the questions "what are you?" or even "who are you?" But htese are not what people should be asking themselves. We should be asking "Where are you?"

 

Are you living in Jesus' promise that you are his?Are you in the Kingdom of God, where "Jesus is Lord!"? Where are you? Are you lving in Christ by faith? Are you in a trusting relationship that Jesus will take care of you, no matter what?

But there's more to where you should be. You should be living in your neighbor by love. The Christian is in two places, as Luther says, "The Christian does not live in himself, but in Christ and his neighbor."

Do not define yourself by who you think you are, or what you think you might be. Define yourself by where you are, and Jesus has told you exactly where that is. You are in his Kingdom. He is Lord, and he takes care of you. He forgives all the wrongdoing, he heals all the hurts, he even does away with death. And he gives you another place to be- in the lives of your friends and family and community. This means showing them the very love you have received from Jesus.

 

And when you figure out where you are, you might even realize who you are and what you were created to be.