OPINION:
In 2015, 75 percent of Americans identified themselves as Christians. And I find myself – given the state of America – wondering how that is even possible.
When we look at the cultural hostility towards people of faith and add the stat that we kill a million children in the womb annually and have a Congress that supports killing a child on its way out of the womb if the mother or a doctor deems it necessary, none of this sounds Christian to me.
Subscribe to have the Higher Ground newsletter delivered to your inbox every Sunday.
Or how about the fact that God created two genders: male and female. And yet a large majority keep silent because they fear the cultural pressure to accept LGBTQ or think it is the Christian thing to do by accepting it. They reject the language of “sin is sin.” But hey, “love is love,” right?
The bottom line is that a large percentage of “Christians” identify with the team name and have some “fan-based” knowledge of Christ, but don’t have a living relationship with Jesus Christ and are not true authentic followers of Christ.
They are mere fans. Fans who are fooled by the identification system of the world. And that is why if our identity is not in Christ alone and built upon His Word, then we will easily be defined by color, class and cultural tones. You see, we are witnessing a nation of people with an identity crisis because they don’t truly know who Christ is. They may “wear the name” of Christian but they are not bearing the nature of Christ.
And that is why today’s nominal Christianity does the worse of all things. It leaves people lost yet convinces them they are fine. And so, they walk, talk, and look just like the world, but they don’t speak Bible. Sadly, they don’t even know that the Bible speaks.
“Indeed, the word of God is living and active…” – Hebrews 4:12 (ESV)
And the only way to not be conformed to the world is to be daily transformed by the Word. In other words, if you call yourself a believer, then you will be a follower. And as such, you need to be intentional in divorcing the things of the world and to daily renew your union with the Lord through the study of the Word of God and learning His character and ways.
Of course, this is easier said than done because of the fall of man in the Garden of Eden and the battle with our inherent sinful nature. But through the power of the Holy Spirit, changed hearts and minds are inevitable.
Because of our sinful nature, we need to practice vigilance. Since sin has entered our skin, we are either “falling” in love with the world and its ways, or we are clinging to the cross and allowing the love of Christ to be the sole remover of sin and the greatest mover of the soul.
The Apostle John would write, “Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him” – 1 John 2:15 (ESV). He then would go on to describe “all that is in the world,” which are the sinful magnetic pulls that attract our eyes, flesh and heart. Otherwise known as the lust of the eyes, lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. These harmful inclinations continually war against the spirit.
And that is why we can choose to identify with the term Christian or actually be a Christian who follows the risen Lord in a fallen world. Thus, we are either worldly or godly, but we can’t be both. Worldliness, therefore, is the sin of the soul that seeks to find our identity apart from the Creator. And godliness then, is the goal of the soul that knows our identity is only found in the Savior.
–
Matthew Maher is a former pro soccer player. He is an author of multiple books, pastor at Landmark Church in Ocean City, New Jersey, and founder of Truth Over Trend.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.