Dare to Be: What it Means to be a "Christian" Part 3

One of the most overly used religions to be used as an affiliation when there is a lack of one is Christianity. Many people believe they are a Christian because they believe in God or their parent believed. The sad truth is Christianity is not a religion where affiliation or attendance of church makes you a follower. With the constant growth of secularism and the removal of church from the general public, we have seen a surge of "good" people with hopes they will get into heaven.

The term "good" is really a relative word that does not truly have a set meaning rather, a general consensus of what it is. In fact one person may feel something is good while another feels that it is not. For example, an individual may feel it is "good" to lie to someone to protect them from the truth which may hurt them severely while someone else may feel it is not good to lie to someone no matter the situation. We at this point have a conflict with what is good and not and the lines become blurred. With this knowledge we can not truly say anything or anyone is good with out a set of guidelines from someone who is truly good. I though have an aversion to the word good and instead like to use holy or unholy. When we extract the word good and replace it with holy, we no longer have the dispute of what is right and wrong. It is unholy to lie but, it is holy to tell the truth. It is unholy to lust but, holy to love. Once we see the guidelines are no longer blurred we can truly say there is no human who is holy and we are in turn not good.

So what makes one holy? The Bible says that we are saved ut, grace and not by works. This is a gift from God so that no man can boast and say my works are better than someone else's and that he worked his way into heaven. Instead we have been given a gift through the sacrifice of Christ for the atonement of our sins . No longer are we required to do works to get into heaven but, rather we do out of obedience to the One who gave us life. No longer are we bound by the shackles of sin that once bound us to an eternity of torture and the flames of hell. We have redemption and the only way we can truly say "I am a Christian" is if we believe in the One who gave it all. Good is relative and selective but, holy is direct and nothing and no one can blur the lines of what is right and wrong if we view everything through the eyes of God.