Originally posted by republic
I'm 26, I've been a Christian for about 10 years now. The older I get the more frustrating it can be to remain steadfast in the midst of the great multitude of Christians 'in name only' and the general trials of life.
Some of you gents who are older in the faith, what scripture do you lean on when all else fails?
For me it would be:
Proverbs 3:5-6: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct thy paths.
I'm not a regular O'Clubber, and came across this almost by accident. I'm responding with a new thread because a couple times your disappointment implied you might drop out of the thread. And, it's not a PM because your unanswered question might stand as an indictment in some eyes.
And it is a deceptively deep question. To get an answer, you first have to decide how you are going to define a "Christian" -- which means for my answer to make any sense, I have to define what I mean by the term too. Originally, it wasn't the name of a religion; it just meant someone who followed Christ, the way someone might be a Democrat and follow the party's principles. That's the sense of "christian" I believe in. It seems to me everything mankind has ADDED to the message (all the tradition and bureaucracy and stuff) only detracts from the Message's meaning, from what Jesus was trying to teach.
And what is that message?
We've all fallen short of perfection, and we cannot MAKE our inner, true selves "good enough." So God came to earth as Jesus, paid the legal debt, and squared the accounts in our name. All he asks in return is that we accept his work, and follow in his steps so our innermost person can become more like him. He taught our outward behavior is worthless without inner change. He taught that ultra-religious piety can be filthy in God's eyes, when it's the focus of someone's religion -- He warned against being like "whitewashed tombs" that look beautiful outside but have rot and corruption inside. He taught that the inward life was so much the point that in the end there would be people who preached and prayed and prophesied in Jesus' name, who simply never, ever knew him. So, despite the way many christians act, there's no place in Christianity for pride or self righteousness. Despite how some christians act,
everyone (including believers) has fallen short and is completely dependent on God's mercy. Some chriistians forget that
ALL failings are "big sins," not just "the nasty things other people do", because even "little" things like gossip and anger and selfishness separate us from God.
These ideas should be enough to humble anybody, but many christians completely forget the inner life and instead go no farther than "checking off the list" of do's and don'ts. Going to church, singing hymns, volunteering at the soup kitchen, flowery prayers mean absolutely nothing under the paradigm Jesus established. I'd be really worried living that kind of life, since it sounds an awful lot like the "whitewashed tombs" that Jesus warned us about way back when.
Explaining that foundation pretty much answers your question too. What makes someone a christian isn't what they call themselves, it's their relationship with God through Jesus. You and I can't see the inside of someone else's heart any more than they can see the inside of ours, and the inside is what God cares about. Are they fake, or just immature? Can't do better than quote what Jesus said (answering a different question) -- "What is that to you? Follow me." That means the when Christians behave in ways that I think embarrass the faith, it seems to me that they're basically showing spots in their lives that they haven't let God work on yet. And you know what? I've got those too. So when injustice or hypocrisy or whatever gets to me, I use it as a trigger to refocus onto what God wants to do in
ME.
Cause in the end we're all just travelling on the path following the same guy.
Second part of your question: well, hard to pick one verse or passage, because seems like in my life God makes something difference come alive in every situation. But if I had to pick one, guiding principle verse, it would likely be this one:
And what does the LORD require of you?
To act justly and to love mercy
and to walk humbly with your God. (Micah 6:8)
