Distinctions

Just had to share this, as it seems the Lord has been laying this on my heart as of late.

It needs to be said that there is a difference in being a Christian and being a good person.  The most recent statistic I read said something that blew my mind.  One out of every four Americans claims to be a Christ follower.  That's 25% of our total population.  It seems to me that if this were indeed the truth, this country would be in a much better position emotionally, economically and spiritually than we are now.

Philip Yancey in his phenomenal book "Reaching for the Invisible God" shares an open letter he penned to God.  Though this is his letter, it perfectly captures my intentions in starting and continuing this blog:

" 'You sure don't act as if God is alive'--that's the accusation one of Pattie's friends made to her, and it has haunted me ever since, as a question.  Do I act as if You are alive?
    Sometimes I treat you as a substance, a narcotic like alcohol or Valium, when I need a fix, to smooth over the harshness of reality, or to take it away.  I can sometimes ease off from this world into an awareness of an invisible world; and most of the time I truly believe it exists, as real as this world of oxygen and grass and water.  But how do I do the reverse, to let the reality of your world--of You--enter in and transform the numbing sameness of my daily life, and my daily self?
    I see progress, I admit.  I see you now as someone I respect, even reverence, rather than fear.  Now your mercy and grace impress me more than your holiness and awe.  Jesus has done that for me, I suppose.  He has tamed you, at least enough so that we can live together in the same cage without me cowering in the corner all the time.  He has made you appealing, love-able.  And I tell myself that he has made me appealing and love-able to you as well.  That's not something I could ever come up with on my own; I have to take your word for it. Much of the time, I hardly believe it.
    So how do I act as if you're alive?  How do the cells of my body, the same ones that sweat and urinate and get depressed and toss and turn in bed at night--how do these cells carry around the splendor of the God of the Universe in a way that leaks out for others to notice?  How do I love even one person with the love you came to bring?
    Occasionally I get caught up in your world, and love you, and I've learned to cope OK in this world, but how do I bring the two together?  That's my prayer, I guess: to believe in the possibility of change.  Living inside myself, change is hard to observe.  So often it seems like learned behavior, like adaptations to an environment, as the scientists say.  How do I let you change me in my essence, in my nature, to make me more like you?  Or is that even possible?
    Funny, I find it easier to believe in the impossible--to believe in the parting of the Red Sea, to believe in Easter--than to believe in what should seem more possible: the slow, steady dawning of Your life in people like me and Janet and Dave and Mary and Bruce and Kerry and Janice and Paul.  Help me to believe in the possible, God."

Friends, calling yourself a good person and simply going to a church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car.  It is a living, active relationship with a living, active person, the person of Jesus Christ.