CHRIST LIKE

To be a Christian is to pattern your life to be Christ like!

On June 12, 1940 at age 12, spiritually, I was born again. In a revival meeting at the Fairview Methodist Church in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina I stood before my God, my relatives and my friends and publicly stated that I believed in Jesus Christ as my personal savior. In essence, I made a commitment to a triune God that I would love Him with all my heart, all my soul and all my mind and that I would love my neighbor as myself. Jesus explained in Matthew 22-40 that all the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.

“For God so loved the World that he gave his one and only Son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

John 3-16

It was and is that simple. 

All the rest is commentary!

I was baptized and joined the Methodist church.

It was then, and it is now, important that we publicly declare our Christian faith and that we join our fellow Christians as the most responsible people God has to offer. This responsibility must be reflected in how we live our entire lives as Christians. It is imperative that we be Christ like as members of family, church and as citizens of a representative type government.

As a young Christian I knew everyone in the country for miles around and I literally expected myself, as well as my fellow Christians, to be a loving, disciplined, friendly and a responsible people. And we were. Protestant churches respected each denomination as a body of the universal church of Jesus Christ with the Great Commission, seeking disciples for Jesus Christ, their objective.

Over the years, things have changed.

Somewhere and sometime during my sixty odd years of faithful service the United Methodist Church left me. They became too liberal and for most purposes the hierarchy of the institution condoned pro-abortionist and accepted homosexuality as an acceptable lifestyle within the institution and evangelism gradually became a thing of the past. 

Since leaving the United Methodist Church I am having difficulty in selecting a church or denomination that I can feel comfortable and needed.

The immorality and the sins of our current society and culture is beginning to permeate most all of our institutions of family, church and government. As a result most of them become separate entities unto themselves and they begin to perpetuate their own image; thereby forgetting their intended purpose for existence. They too, must spiritually be reborn!

This collective and spiritual rebirth requires that we as individuals and members of these institutions must ask ourselves some tough and honest questions about three areas of our lives, our families, our churches and our government since our Christian faith is reflected in all three. 

The following facts must be faced if we intend to be connected to the vine.

Our young children are being taught by our public school system, definitely a part of our representative type government, that a homosexual lifestyle is to be aided, abetted and encouraged. Our children are told that homosexuals are born that way and cannot help themselves; denying that every human being has a free will of their own. In most states Christians are now being persecuted because we do not agree. We believe that homosexual behavior is a sin. Persecution and possible imprisonment will continue by agents of a secular government, possibly by your own neighbor, unless we do something to change the discriminatory law now on the books. And this is America!

Thou shall not kill. Abortion is tantamount to murder. How can we, as a nation, a gathering together of a diverse and a gentle people, whose ancestors were definitely touched by a divine power and who forged and built the most humane society in history allow this practice to continue?

To me the Christian faith is a progressive divine entity in which God is continuously

challenging his people, as individuals, to be more Christ like and encourages the learned Christian to use the Holy Spirit as divine authority for their actions. The wisdom of mature Christians is often disregarded by members of the clergy especially those who

preside over the hierarchy of any particular denomination. Often it is the younger members of the congregation seeking change for the sole purpose to enhance their own private Christian “career.” They do not realize there is no such thing as a better Christian! Most pastors have trouble understanding this simple fact. Being a Christian is like being pregnant. Either you are or you aren’t.

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. Psalms 95-1-2. Gospel music is presently one of the fastest growing professional entertainment business

within our society and culture. A lot of people seek fame and fortune in this manner. I personally like some of the songs that are scripturally sound within southern gospel music. What I cannot understand is why many of our churches actually hire (we call it a love offering) these people and permit them to sell their wares within the walls and halls of our sanctuaries. Remember these are professional entertainers and they are in business for themselves! John: 2-16 reveals the anger of Jesus by people selling doves. He rebuked them and said, “Get these out of here? How dare you turn my Fathers house into a market!” Isn’t it truly a blessing when our choir or a members of our congregation, with the help of our pianist and organist, sing joy and praises to our Lord without the expectation of a special love offering or selling tapes in our sanctuary? 

I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. John: 15-5. According to the latest polls 83% (give or take 3%) of our children under 18 years of age do not go to Sunday school or church. This leaves 14 to 20 percent that are somewhat active and with whom the Christian faithful within our church institutions have a prayer of leading them to be disciples of Jesus Christ. The United States of America is no longer a Christian nation and the morals and sins of our society and culture are definitely not Christ like. Within my lifetime, our nation is now the new prime territory demanding the missionary ministry of the Great Commission from other nations of the world. In the meantime our churches spend endless hours convincing us that we should be tolerant of and accept non-Christian religions as truth. We shouldn’t; read 1 John 5: 6-12. It plainly tells us that unbelievers will split hell wide open! The Great Commission is the fact that Christians have a divine duty to reveal these truths to unbelievers; therefore seeking disciples for Jesus Christ.

I am a Christian and I go to church with a lot of other Christians. I don’t know these people and they don’t know me. That is a fact. Outside a few weather remarks after shaking hands with the pastor or a comment about deer hunting, fishing, the latest pick up truck or four wheeler, we rarely talk. Hardly anyone invites me to visit and I very seldom ask them to visit me. True friendships are born and sustained through the art of conversation. Is this art dead? I think it is. Dead as a doornail! Are we too busy to reconcile our differences and strengthen our friendships like Christians have done since Paul brought the “Good News” to the gentiles? Didn’t the early church share their

faith and seal their friendship by meeting at members houses?

“Red and yellow, black or white, they are precious in His sight; Jesus loves the little children of this world!” To most Christians I personally know racism is a thing of the past or should be. Martin Luther King in his sermon “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” said that he wanted a nation that would judge his children for the content of their character rather than the color of their skin. Actually, Dr. King got his wish. Most of the derogatory remarks this day and age about the black race mainly deals with the content of character rather that the color of their skin, especially the remarks of the Christian people. Yet we are called racists while we are expecting and anticipating responsibility and discipline. The Christian people cannot be harshly judged for setting high standards of conduct, ethics, morals and character while seeking disciples for Jesus Christ. We still love all the little children of this world. It may take a lifetime but we intend to be Christ like in our endeavors.

Evangelism and revival are the two mainstays of any church. Locally, a reawakening,

and a revival of our zeal as an instrument for reassuring ourselves, our neighbors and our community that we are here, alive and well to do whatever we can to promote our faith and bring others into our midst. 

Evangelism, the zealous preaching and dissemination of the gospel, is a force that is extremely effective, especially through a missionary ministry. We should never wane as we carry our faith throughout our county, our state, our nation and the whole wide world.

That is what I am looking for. I have not lost my faith even though I feel that my lifelong branch is no longer connected to the vine. I am not seeking a perfect church. None exists. But I am looking for an institution that knows its intended purpose – to be Christ like.