Identifying genuine Christians

While God knows all who belong to Him, often I’m not sure. People in my family claim to be Christians, as do friends and others I’ve met, but are they just ‘nice’ folks? Or has Jesus come into their lives?

While this is an issue that must be left with God, how to pray for them is my concern. Christians need prayer support as they grow in grace. Others need Jesus to come into their lives as believers pray for the power of grace to bring them into God’s family. While the Bible has much to say about identifying true faith, here is an interesting passage that helps me better understand how to ID believers and pray for them:

“For we know, brothers loved by God, that he has chosen you, because our gospel came to you not only in word, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction. You know what kind of men we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For not only has the word of the Lord sounded forth from you in Macedonia and Achaia, but your faith in God has gone forth everywhere, so that we need not say anything. For they themselves report concerning us the kind of reception we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, Jesus who delivers us from the wrath to come.” (1 Thessalonians 1:4–10)

The writer says he knows that his readers in Thessalonica are God’s people because the Holy Spirit fully convicted them. This could be two kinds of conviction. One is that they realized the depth of their sinfulness. It was not a ‘Sure, I mess up now and then’ conviction, but a deeper understanding that produced sincere crying out to God to save them.

The second conviction is deeply knowing that God heard their prayer and that the answer to that cry is the Lord Jesus Christ. They were convicted that they not only needed Him, but that He is who He claims to be — God’s answer to sin, the Messiah, Savior and Lord of all.

Secondly, they demonstrated they were God’s people by placing themselves under the leadership and example of God’s people. This is not a blind following. They understood the Word of God and lived it out, demonstrating their faith without being exhorted to do so. The fruit of the Holy Spirit was there and evident.

Along that line, another evidence was that they turned from idols to not only worship God, but to serve Him. Reflecting on that, I realize many can claim to be Christians but refuse to become involved in serving God. Is this because they have not given up on other gods that they trust for many things? Idolatry is far more common in our world than we realize as many of today’s idols are not as easily seen as carvings in wood and stone.

Another evidence of true faith in Christ is that attitude of waiting, even eagerly waiting, for Jesus to return. I know people who claim to believe in Him, even serve in a church, but who do not believe Jesus is going to return. For some of them, He is not even a real person, more an idea, a mythical example for us to live by and not the very source of life.

Those who claim to belong to God’s family are usually pleasant, friendly, and live a good life. However, their ‘faith’ is misplaced and will eventually be exposed by their attitude toward sin and the second coming. The Bible gives other ways to ‘test the spirits’ but these help me better understand how to pray.

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Jesus, thank You for hearing the need of my heart today. I’ve stuttered when trying to pray for a few people because I don’t know where they stand with You. This Word from You immensely helps me!

Disciples are marked by perseverance

While it is usually children who get into an “I’m the best” contest, Jesus’ disciples had at least one argument about which one of them would be the greatest. I wonder if Jesus chuckled as He told them that the greatest in His kingdom would be those willing to be the least in status. They could be leaders, but leaders must be willing to serve. He pointed to Himself as an example. Then He told them what really mattered . . .

“You are those who have stayed with me in my trials, and I assign to you, as my Father assigned to me, a kingdom, that you may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Luke 22:28–30)

“You are those who have stayed with me . . . .” This isn’t about greatness! The followers of Jesus Christ are marked by a persistent devotion to Him, sticking by Him in His trials.

This word ‘trial’ means “an attempt to learn the nature or character of someone or something by submitting it to thorough and extensive testing.” Jesus uses the perfect tense of this verb, meaning that they had stayed with Him the past and would continue to do so on into the future.

We have the biblical record of Jesus being tested by all sorts of things. The disciples stayed with Him through almost all of it, fleeing only when He was arrested to be crucified. However, they later fulfilled what He said they would do; most of them were martyred for their faith. They stuck with Jesus no matter what, which is the mark of genuine faith.

This persistent faithfulness is not just about the first disciples. It applies to all who profess faith in Jesus Christ, including me. I can endure because He lives in me and gives me that same endurance to stay with Him, no matter what.

The Bible does not say trials ‘like’ those He experienced, but His actual trials. How can that be since He is not here? But He is here, living in me. Our experiences are shared.

To illustrate, my relationship in Christ is something like a sheet of paper slipped inside a book. Jesus is the book. Wherever He goes; I go. He stops to rest; I stop to rest. I am tested and He knows it. He is tested with lies from the enemy; I hear the same lies.

In the above verses, Jesus says that His disciples are those who continue with Him. That means I will not fall out of the book, out of being in Him. This is where God has put me and where He keeps me. If I sin against the One in whom I dwell, God says I will suffer loss, but like the book hides the paper, Jesus covers my sin. He continues with me, saving me, keeping me. I cannot live without Him, and the silliness of my sin is but a temporary set-back. He keeps me hidden in Himself.

In this relationship, every time I am tested, Jesus is there. Every time Satan presses to have Jesus abandon God’s plan, I am there too. Whether it is Jesus who is tested or me, I most certainly experience the reality of those tests!

Because of this incredible God-given union with Christ, I am with Him in His trials, and He is covering me in my trials. I may not always be aware of all that goes on in this spiritual war, but my awareness is not the issue. The issue is that God has put me in His kingdom and in Christ and gives me the power to endure. There I stay, sometimes foolishly resisting, but most of the time joyfully grateful for His amazing grace.

Identified by words and actions

In 1995, my sister and her husband went with us to Scotland for a Leslie Clan reunion. We ate supper in a small nearby inn the night before the event started. Another couple sat opposite and the four of us began a whispered debate about which one was the Leslie. From their appearance, it could have been either. Finally my sister went over and asked them. She came back laughing; they were brother and sister, both Leslies.

In this situation, appearance was the identifying factor. In fact, it replayed the next few days as we mingled with more than 500 people who looked like members of our immediate family.

Other than having a joyful countenance, appearance has little to do with how Christians should be identified. Some say it should be by our words. Others say it should be by the way we act. Obviously something should be noticed, something that makes us different from those around us.

For a whole year they (Barnabas and Saul/Paul) met with the church and taught a great many people. And in Antioch the disciples were first called Christians. (Acts 11:26)

What made the people of Antioch call these disciples by this title? The broad answer might be that they proclaimed themselves followers of Christ. Yet when anyone ‘follows’ someone else, the implication is that that follower begins to act like their leader, even as they do what their leader tells them.

 The context of this verse gives more clues. It says that Barnabas “was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith. And a great many people were added to the Lord.” (Acts 11:24) This indicates that Christians ought to be good, even in the eyes of those who do not follow Jesus. The presence of the Holy Spirit should also be obvious, as is openness about their faith. Very few can bear the title ‘Christian’ if they have never declared themselves to be one. One more clue is that disciples of Jesus Christ tend to be involved in the reproduction of more disciples.

A few verses later describe another action, how we should respond to difficulties experienced by other Christians.

And one of them named Agabus stood up and foretold by the Spirit that there would be a great famine over all the world (this took place in the days of Claudius). So the disciples determined, every one according to his ability, to send relief to the brothers living in Judea. And they did so, sending it to the elders by the hand of Barnabas and Saul. (Acts 11:28–30)

Prophetic utterances aside, when the church in Judea faced a severe famine, the Christians in Antioch took a collection and sent it to them. One major evidence of being a Christian is that we take care of one another. This is why the Bible speaks much of unity and loving one another; a church spat shamefully destroys the evidence.

From the context then, being identified as a Christian involves both words and deeds. A ‘good’ person may or may not believe in Jesus, but no one knows unless that person shares their faith with others, particularly when the result is that others also believe.

Yet speaking is hollow and worthless if it is not accompanied by action. I must ‘walk the talk’ or my words have no weight. Without suitable action to go with my claims, instead of earning the title of Christian, I would be called a hypocrite. Being a Christian should be plain for others to see, in both what I say and what I do.

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Lord, being Your child means that I should show evidence of that relationship. Today, help me talk and behave in a manner that is both worthy and descriptive of a disciple who loves and follows You.

Marked for life

When anyone talked about grey hair, my mother often pointed to her own and joked, “I’ve earned every one of them.” For her, they were more than a sign of age. They signified endurance in trials and battles won.

Most of us bear marks, whether literal or hidden scars, that have shaped our lives. Sometimes we earn them, sometimes we deserve them, yet isn’t it possible that most are there by God’s design?

Cain was the first to be marked. He had murdered his brother and God judged him for it.

And the Lord said, “What have you done? The voice of your brother’s blood is crying to me from the ground. And now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother’s blood from your hand. When you work the ground, it shall no longer yield to you its strength. You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth.” Cain said to the Lord, “My punishment is greater than I can bear. Behold, you have driven me today away from the ground, and from your face I shall be hidden. I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on the earth, and whoever finds me will kill me.” Then the Lord said to him, “Not so! If anyone kills Cain, vengeance shall be taken on him sevenfold.” And the Lord put a mark on Cain, lest any who found him should attack him. (Genesis 4:10–15)

Cain’s punishment was alienation and difficulty in making a living. He was also fearful that others would try to kill him. But God, in great mercy, marked this sinner so that he also would be protected. Do I bear scars that actually protect me?

In another situation, God’s prophet saw a vision. In it, God was dealing with the evil happening among His people. He told a man (likely an angel) to mark those who hated sin.

And the Lord said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. Kill old men outright, young men and maidens, little children and women, but touch no one on whom is the mark. And begin at my sanctuary.” So they began with the elders who were before the house. (Ezekiel 9:4–6)

The obvious question here is: do I bear scars that mark me as a committed follower of God who loves righteousness and hates sin? Paul was such a person with those marks. He said, “From now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus” (Galatians 6:17).

One of the better known marks mentioned in the Bible is not from God. It is the mark of the beast…

Also it causes all, both small and great, both rich and poor, both free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead, so that no one can buy or sell unless he has the mark, that is, the name of the beast or the number of its name. This calls for wisdom: let the one who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man, and his number is 666. (Revelation 13:16–18)

While this mark is not clearly described, it will identify anyone who has rejected God. Clearly, there will be suffering because of that rejection. 

There is much speculation about what this mark will look like. Is it some sort of implant that enables a person to pay bills without cash? Is it a visible mark, or symbolic? Whatever it looks like, it is also avoidable. No one who worships and obeys Jesus Christ will receive this mark. By being “mark-less” Christians will suffer because of it, but our eternal destiny is secure. Jesus has already received our punishment.

Those who do have this mark will receive far worse. Unlike Cain who was protected, in the end all who do not repent will suffer God’s wrath. It begins with physical pain and ends with eternal damnation.

So the first angel went and poured out his bowl on the earth, and harmful and painful sores came upon the people who bore the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. (Revelation 16:2)…. And another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a loud voice, “If anyone worships the beast and its image and receives a mark on his forehead or on his hand, he also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night, these worshipers of the beast and its image, and whoever receives the mark of its name.” (Revelation 14:9–11)

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Lord, I don’t know how to apply this on this ordinary October day. Will this post warn someone? Will these thoughts motivate me to speak to someone? Should I consider the “marks” in my life and explore their significance and Your purpose for allowing them? You have given me much to think about and I’m relying on Your Spirit to enlighten me about my marks and scars.