I'm a Christian, aren't I?

Completing The Picture

Dan Clark, Daniel Clark

• Publisher: IVP
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9781844744190
• eBook ISBN: 9781844747337
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christianity

Popular ideas about what being a Christian means donâ?Tt always help us see the full picture:
* 'A Christian is someone who believes in God'
* 'I've been christened - so I'm a Christian'
* 'I attend church'
* 'I try to lead a good life'
* 'A Christian is someone who's been "born again"'
Many people think of themselves as Christians but arenâ?Tt quite clear what that means. Some feel confused, or disappointed with God. Others have never fully embraced a relationship with Jesus.
In this simple but profound book, Dan Clark helps the reader put together all the pieces of what being a follower of God really means. Challenging us to explore what Jesus' priorities are, readers will discover a richness in their Christian life which may have been lacking: joy, peace, assurance, deep relationships, contentment and friendship with God.

Piece 1: Believing

‘I’m pretty sure there is a God, but I do have doubts. Some days they’re bigger than others. For instance, there are those scientists who say they’ve disproved God. Even if there is a God, I don’t like the way different religions all claim to be right – that’s not very tolerant, is it? Maybe there’s no way to find out for sure about God.’ (Sanjay, thirty-two)

‘Our church says the creed: “I believe in God...” Looking round, it seems as though some people say it with great conviction, but most sort of mumble through it, unsure what some words mean, and with little thought to what the implications might be. It’s just a part of the ritual. I definitely believe in God. I’m not so sure Jesus was God, but I’m happy to call him a son of God.’ (Issy, fifty-five)

A few weeks ago, an email I received mentioned a newspaper article headed ‘Britons are believers of fuzzy faith, says survey’.1 Intrigued, I clicked on the link to read on. As it turns out, the description of someone with fuzzy faith fitted some of my friends: someone whose idea of God is rather vague, and whose relationship to any church is quite weak. Of course, many of these people would still describe themselves as ‘spiritual’ and ‘moral’ – but they might prefer to talk about a ‘Higher Power’ than about ‘God’, and they don’t like to take the whole package of religion on board.

Maybe that’s how you’d describe yourself.

There are lots of different reasons why people might describe their faith as fuzzy:

• I’ve met teenagers and young adults who tell me that they went to church schools, but ‘weren’t really interested’ in the religious side of things.
• Other people have told me they used to believe, but then life got in the way – they encountered tragedy or terrible suffering, which has poured cold water over the fire of faith, reducing it to smouldering ashes.
• I’ve met young couples who’ve been overwhelmed at the birth of their children, and it’s made them realize that ‘there must be something out there’.
• A few people have told me that they’ve been attending church for years, but have never really understood the language used in church – so their belief in God is still quite vague.
• Some older people gave up going to church years ago, but have never fully abandoned a belief in God.
• I’ve met still others who think that ‘science has all the answers now’, leaving them with a much-reduced faith in God.2

I have a lot of sympathy for such people, and respect their honesty. Many people’s faith seems to rise and fall at different points in their lives. For me, it was being awed by the beauty and grandeur of creation that helped set me on the road to faith. I can remember being blown away by the sheer majesty of a mountain range, and being speechless as I watched the incredible colours of a sunset.

But is it possible to progress from a fuzzy faith? Can we know with any greater certainty what God is like? As someone said, ‘If there is a God, why doesn’t he just send someone down?’

In fact, that’s exactly what God has done!

Getting God in focus

I’d love to be a great photographer – although I’m not sure I’ve got the patience to become one! Our camera is pretty basic, but on occasion, I’m able to borrow the sort of camera where, as you look through the viewfinder and adjust the lens, suddenly the subject comes into focus.

When Jesus stepped into our world, he was bringing God into focus. As we look at the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, our picture of God can stop being fuzzy and become sharply focused. As we read the pages of the Gospels, we can watch how he interacts with the good and the godless, listen to him speak, see what motivates him, and sense the awe that he generated. Jesus spoke of God as ‘the Father who sent him’ 3 – and he said, ‘Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.’ 4 His point is clear: as we look at Jesus, we see God himself.

The implication of this is that God doesn’t intend for us to have a fuzzy faith. If Jesus has come into our world to show us what God is like, he wants us to have a focused picture of him. So what is God like?

A million miles away or down to earth?

Most people who work for huge multinational companies never get to meet the Managing Director. Employees might respect him (or her) for leading such a large, successful company. And depending on the culture of the company, they might even fear the MD, and not feel able to say anything bad about the company. But they almost certainly wouldn’t know the MD, nor expect the MD to know them.

Some people relate to God in much the same way: they would say that they respect him, maybe even fear him. But they don’t know him, and wouldn’t expect him to know them – after all, they operate in different spheres. To them, God is a distant being. Is that how you think about God?

It turns out that we don’t need to look a million miles away for God; he’s walked this earth. And in Jesus, he’s experienced every aspect of our human lives. In fact, he’s experienced more injustice and suffering than most people (at least in the West) will ever do. He was born in the equivalent of a farmyard barn – not in a royal palace or private hospital, as might have been befitting for the king of the universe. As a toddler, his family was forced to flee from tyrannical infanticide (targeted at Jesus), becoming refugees in a foreign country. When he became a travelling preacher, it seems that he was extremely poor, and probably homeless. He frequently encountered opposition from powerful religious authorities, who tried to silence him. Jesus was betrayed by one of his followers, and abandoned by all his close friends. His trial was almost certainly illegal and stocked with false witnesses. His death sentence was confirmed by a spineless politician who was convinced of Jesus’ innocence – yet who bowed to public pressure. He died a criminal’s death, hanging from a cross in the searing Middle Eastern heat, naked and humiliated, gasping for breath.

It is just extraordinary that God should choose to experience human life in all its pain and vulnerability like this. Jesus shatters the notion that God is remote and uninterested in human life. We don’t need to relate to him as to a distant MD, because he doesn’t want to relate to us like that.

Abstract or personal?

Darth Vader said to Luke Skywalker, ‘I know what you’re getting for your birthday.’

‘How come?’ replied Luke.

‘I felt your presence.’

Groan! Another common notion of God goes like this: he’s a spiritual force (in true Star Wars style), an energy that runs and flows between all of us. In other words, God is a bit like electricity or microwaves: powerful and unseen. But imagine being told to ‘love electricity’ – you can’t love an impersonal thing! Yet Jesus said that the most important commandment is to ‘love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind’.5 Do you see? Jesus assumes that God is not only powerful and unseen, but also very personal – and he says that the most important thing in the world is for us to love him. Not just to love the idea of God. But to love God personally with every ounce of our being.

Certainly, the Bible doesn’t talk about ‘God’ as an abstract – as some theory to be believed in. Rather, it shows God as he deals personally with ordinary humans like you and me. ‘I am the bread of life,’ Jesus said. ‘Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.’6 Jesus was saying that he hadn’t come just to lay down a new philosophy, but to satisfy those who are hungry and thirsty for meaning in life. Similarly, when Jesus said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’,7 he was saying that he hadn’t come just to lay down a new list of rules, but to help guide those who walk somewhat aimlessly through life so that they can find the ‘light of life’.

Since God is a personal God, a vitally important question emerges: do we know God personally?

If I were to read the autobiography of my favourite footballer, I’d know a lot about him, but it wouldn’t mean we were friends with each other. We wouldn’t talk on the phone; he wouldn’t text me from his latest luxury holiday.

Can you say that you know God, or do you feel that you might only know things about God? Can you say that you love God?

Real lives – Liz

Liz, twenty-seven, is a full-time mother who likes scrapbooking.

I went to church with my parents as a child. It was just a thing that we did on a Sunday. It was quite boring, and when I started my GCSEs I just stopped going.

After I went to university, my partner and I were told it would be hard for us to have children, yet everyone around us seemed to be getting pregnant. In one desperate moment, crying, I prayed – for the first time truthfully and believing in God – that he would grant us the opportunity to have a baby. Three months later I discovered I was pregnant!

After getting married and having our son, I started to think that I wanted my son to go to church as I had. A couple of weeks later I started to attend a Christianity Explored course, mainly because I was interested in the crèche and in making friends. But that very first meeting and talking with other Christians got me thinking: what if there is something more in this than I realize, and it isn’t just about believing in ‘something’? The penny-dropping moment for me was when we were talking about grace, and I realized that God sent his Son to die and take away our sins, and that we are saved by his grace.

I’m learning that God works in every aspect of our lives, and that trusting in him is the way we should live.

The Bishop of Durham, Tom Wright, wrote:

Christian spirituality combines a sense of the awe and majesty of God with a sense of his intimate presence...As Jesus addresses God as ‘Father’, so Christians are encouraged to do the same, to come to know God in the way in which, in the best sort of family, the child knows the parent. From time to time I have met churchgoers who look puzzled at this, and say that they have no idea what all that stuff is about. I have to say that being a Christian without something at least of that intimate knowledge of the God who is at the same time majestic, awesome and holy sounds to me like a contradiction in terms.8

Could that be describing you? God wants us to know him personally, and if that sense of ‘intimate presence’ is lacking, then it may be a sign that the ‘believing’ piece of the jigsaw is missing or at least sadly misshaped.

Indifferent or compassionate?

It can be illuminating to ask people who don’t believe in God, ‘What sort of God don’t you believe in?’ Almost invariably, they have quite a clear picture of the god-they-don’t-believe-in. So when they say they don’t believe in God, they often mean they don’t believe in a God who is authoritarian, harsh, judgmental and uncaring.

The great news is, that’s not the sort of God Christians believe in, either.

A quick glance through the Gospels shows that Jesus was anything but indifferent as he met human need face to face. Several times, we read that Jesus was full of compassion – a deep, stomach-churning desire to help people. On one occasion, we read that Jesus was moved to tears.

Throughout his ministry, he demonstrated an intense concern for individuals. When a blind man tried to call out to Jesus, only to be silenced by the crowds, Jesus summoned him and healed him. When a woman, set up and humiliated by ‘holier than thou’ religious officials, was brought to Jesus in fear of her life, he turned the judgment instead on her accusers, and granted her pardon. When young children clamoured to see Jesus, only to be turned away by his over-officious disciples, Jesus welcomed them and blessed them. When a man was scared to be seen speaking to Jesus, they met instead under cover of darkness. When an unpopular, money-grabbing civil servant shinned up a tree to catch sight of Jesus, Jesus chose to spend time with him, turning his life around.

All this points us to the conclusion that God is concerned about us, our life, our struggles, our needs. Jesus called people by name, as he calls you by name. Imagine: the powerful God of the universe, taking a personal interest in you!

Perfect, or just powerful?

I read a novel recently about the owner of a chemical company that had polluted local water supplies, leading to many cancer deaths. The billionaire owner used his money to buy a legal victory, even though the evidence was stacked against him. It’s often been said that ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’

But how about God? If he’s got absolute power, has it corrupted him? Can he be trusted?

One of the things I find most unnerving in the Gospels is the sheer quality of Jesus’ life. Jesus said, ‘Your heavenly Father is perfect.’9 Significantly, Jesus’ friends said the same thing about him. Having lived alongside him for three years, they concluded, ‘He committed no sin, and no deceit was found in his mouth.’10

Think of something completely pure: a freshly painted wall, with no blemishes; a ski slope at dawn after a fresh snowfall; a clear blue Mediterranean sky with not a cloud in sight. That is a picture of Jesus’ moral perfection.

If we’re honest, that stands in stark contrast to us. However hard we try, we let ourselves and others down – even by our own standards. When we consider God’s standards, we realize our failings even more. Think: have you never lied (even a little white lie)? Have you never stolen anything (even a phone call from your office phone line)? Have you never sworn by God’s or Jesus’ name? Have you always honoured your parents? Have you never wished you had something belonging to someone else (their car/looks/children/garden, etc.)? That’s half of the Ten Commandments broken already! But that is merely a symptom of a deeper problem within us: the fact that we haven’t loved God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength, as he’s asked us to. All of our individual sins are actually a consequence of a failure to love God.

Think of a white wall with a toddler’s pen drawings on; a ski slope so heavily used that it’s turned to dirty slush; a sky with grey cloud and heavy rain moving towards you. That is a picture of our moral imperfection.

So, whilst Jesus turns out to be perfectly powerful and powerfully perfect, we turn out to be neither powerful nor perfect. The Bible makes it clear that, although God made us humans to be in personal friendship with him, our sin now blocks that friendship. That’s one of the reasons why many people complain, ‘I pray to God. But it feels like praying to a brick wall. I never get an answer.’ The problem is that there is something between us and God – not a wall, but our sin.

Condemning or rescuing?

When I do weddings, I occasionally find that some people are very hesitant about coming into the church building, because they half expect a lightning bolt from heaven to strike them down! They know that they haven’t even attempted to live as God wants them to live most of the...

Table of contents

• I’m a Christian, Aren’t I?
• Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Foreword
• Introduction: Unwrapping the jigsaw puzzle
• Piece 1: Believing
• Piece 2: Belonging
• Piece 3: Behaving
• Piece 4: Baptism
• Piece 5: Born again
• Conclusion: Putting the pieces together
• Notes
• Further reading