Living by the Indwelling Life of Christ

If we were to each search our hearts and were humble enough to have all “laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give an account,” one glaring truth would emerge.

Christ is not our all.

We may certainly profess that he is, but this would likely be little more than that: a profession.

The reason we do not live by the indwelling Spirit of Jesus is not because we do not have the time or energy, but because our faith becomes “off-center” so easily.  This is natural and common, but not excusable.

We focus so much on work, school, family, sleep—life—that we lose touch with him who purchased our salvation with his own blood. And while he did this freely by his grace, and though he calls us tenderly by his Spirit, we often forget the words of the prophet David in the second Psalm,

Kiss the Son, lest he be angry and you be destroyed in your way,
For his anger can flare up in a moment.

The most deceptive of our hearts’ schemes comes when we feel we are doing our best before God.  This deception draws strength from the fact that, unlike family or work, it appears to be pure, honorable, and deeply spiritual.  Yet it cannot be accurately described in one word: Christ.

For to me, to live—Christ.

(Philippians 1.21)

Come back to God and allow Christ to become your all-consuming desire, your heart’s one thing. Make Christ your life’s one word description.  Not ministry. Not service. Not reading Scripture or even prayer. Nothing but Christ.

Those other things will supernaturally fall into place when you can say with confidence,

For me, to live is “Christ.”

Should We Recognize Judas?

The Bible makes plain that there will always be unbelievers in fellowship with the believing church. The clearest example of the convincing nature of outward conformity, all while harboring an inward denial of Christ, is that of Judas Iscariot.

At the end of 3 years of ministry, Jesus predicted that his betrayer was at the table with him.  The fact that the other apostles did not immediately turn to look at Judas illuminates that, though his heart was filled with deceit, he had even his closest friends convinced he was one of them.

For Jesus had known from the beginning which of them did not believe and who should betray him.

Do we have a responsibility to safeguard others from deceiving people—or even themselves—with respect to whether their hearts are truly sanctified and their souls saved?  This is a difficult question, for to err on one side is to risk being condemned for unfairly or hypocritically judging others. 

However, to err on the side is to fail to follow the command to “see to it that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God, but encourage one another daily…so that none of you may become hardened by the deceitfulness of sin.”

In one sense, we must not judge, or we too will be judged. Yet we must not fail to warn those who in reality are numbered among those who will ultimately perish.  Is there a distinction between types of judgment? If so, how do we walk in love while obeying our biblical responsibility to be spiritual ”guardians” of one another?

What constitutes a “real Christian”?

A few years ago, Time Magazine ran a cover entitled, “Are Mormons Christians?” This is a hot-button issue for the Latter-day Saint community. It arouses a surprising intensity of emotion, because Mormons are obsessed with being accepted as fully Christian.

“Jesus Christ,’” Mormons will often say, “is in the name of our church. How could you think we are not Christians?”

The early decades of Mormonism were characterized by their drawing sharp distinctions between it and “so-called” Christendom. The last 50 years, by contrast, have witnessed a zealous PR campaign to “look” more like mainstream Christianity, coupled with a hyper-sensitity to any suggestion to the contrary.

The “only true and living Church,” as Mormons call The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, boasts openly that it is the fourth largest “denomination” in the United States, which is hardly what one would expect “the only true church” to boast. However, the “are Mormons Christians” back-and-forth raises a very important question as to the nature of the faith.

One Mormon argues on a popular research blog, the purpose of which is to refute Mormonism, that Christians differ so widely as to what constittues Christianity that it is utterly hopeless to reach a conclusion (it is implied the only reasonable conclusion is to accept the authority of Mormon Church hierarchy, which is uniquely capable of defining true doctrine and interpreting God’s will) http://blog.mrm.org/2012/01/meaning-distinction-and-boundaries/

But what does constitute a Christian? And at what point would one no longer be considered to be a true believer in Christ?