How Do You Know You're A Christian?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XhUsJD0w1M&feature=related

[peach_cube]

[quote name='Hasan' timestamp='1312078304' post='2278790']

Because why would anyone trade an eternity of perfect joy for a finite sin. It suggests a lack of sincerity of belief. Why are you on the internet right now? Why aren't you doing penance? Why would you spend a single moment either ensuring that you were reconciled with God or doing penance to ensure your swift bypass through purgatory once you are reconciled? If you really believed all this stuff.
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This is a good question. I'll give it a shot from personal experience. At times in my life my faith has been quite strong and quite weak, it waxes and wanes much. This can be for a variety of reasons. I have found that trusting in will the God has been quite difficult at time for me. This may be due to the stubbornness of my personality, I also tend to take things in on my own shoulders in general in life and have a difficult time losing the illusion of control that it represents. If I could quantify and graph my faith it would not have much of a pattern until a best fit line was placed showing very slow progress of increasing faith. I feel that the depth at which I approach my faith now has allowed me to have a more persistent and meaningful place in most things that I do.

Now I still do sin. Which begs the question (as you put so well above) of why? Why would I choose to loose so much? We all have our faiths put to the test. Sometimes we fail miserably. I look to the Gospels, I look to the Saints, and I see examples of people picking themselves back up and gaining more faith from those failures. Outside of phatmass I am quite fond of science and baseball. In those interests you would expect to fail the majority of the time. In science, it is almost best to fail. In baseball, if you succeed 3 out of 10 times over a long career you may end up in the hall of fame. I sometimes (often perhaps) need to humbled. God has also given me some great gifts, part of my vocation is to look after those gifts and to help them with their faith, not every action needs to be obvious to an outside observer that I am doing it for the glory of God - only God.

I am not sure if that would make sense to you or if comes across as too simplistic, but it was worth a shot.

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' timestamp='1312115196' post='2278945']
That's because you keep hitting the "report" button instead of the "quote" button.
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Thanks

[cooterhein]

[quote name='thessalonian' timestamp='1312143016' post='2279146']
[b][url="http://www.faithalone.org/index.html"] [/url][/b]
[b] Matthew 7:21-23[/b]

[b] [/b]

[b]21 Not everyone who says to Me, "Lord, Lord," shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who DOES the WILL of My Father in heaven.[/b]
[b]22 Many will say to Me in that day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?"[/b]
[b]23 And then I will declare to them, "I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness."[/b]
[/quote]That passage immediately makes me think, "What was the problem for the people who got sent away? They did stuff in Christ's name. They believed they were Christians. They were surprised by this. They never saw it coming. What could they have done differently? What did they miss? God is completely just, so the screw-up can't be His- somehow, well-intentioned as they are, this has to be on them in some way." God tells them why they're walking out disappointed, though- He never knew them. There's all kinds of people doing things in the name of God, there's all kinds of people who call themselves Christians and truly believe their self-identification is true to reality. But out of those people, there's some who God knows and there's others to whom God will say "I never knew you."

Every time I see that passage, I think of the song "Knowing You" by Graham Kendrick. "Now my heart's desire is to know you more, to be found in You and known as Yours. To possess by faith what I could not earn, all surpassing gift of righteousness." That sounds like the heart's desire of the people God does know. And an attitude of ambivalence toward knowing Jesus probably describes the ones departing; the ones who, in spite of doing so much good in God's name, practiced lawlessness and were not known by Him.

The chorus, of course, starts out "Knowing you, Jesus, knowing you, there is no greater thing." It's all about knowing Jesus and being known by Him. I didn't really look into the passage that inspired this song until today, though. I always associated it most closely with the one you quoted from Matthew just based on my familiarity with it, but this is the one that actually inspired the song. It's Paul, in jail, awaiting execution.

"But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead."
Phillippians 3:7-11

I started putting some things in bold for emphasis, but it wasn't long before I put almost everything in bold. Primarily though, I take away a reiteration of what was said previously- it's all about knowing Jesus. The importance of that is all-surpassing. There's also the thing about possessing a righteousness that is through faith in Christ, and that's a really great part of the sweet deal where you know Jesus and He knows you. Whatever else is or isn't going on, knowing Jesus and being found in Him is what prevents God from turning from you and saying "I never knew you." If He does know you, that doesn't happen.

[thessalonian]

"And they'll know we are Christians by our love, by our love, yes they'll know we are Christians by our love."

[thessalonian]

cooterhien,

Very good post. I think that is really the root of doing works that are truly good. A favorite passage of min is ephesians 3:20-21

[[b]20[/b]]
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

[[b]21[/b]] to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
In coming to know Christ we become Christ for others and live the beatitudes. Our works become him working in and through us producing 30, 60, or 100 fold. These works are supernatural works. All men can produce natural works but these do not bear the kind of fruit that supernatural works do, i.e. bringing others to Christ, and so they are of little value in the grand scheme of things and when done for selfish reasons can be sinful.

[infinitelord1]

[quote name='thessalonian' timestamp='1312408067' post='2281051']
cooterhien,

Very good post. I think that is really the root of doing works that are truly good. A favorite passage of min is ephesians 3:20-21

[[b]20[/b]]
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think,

[[b]21[/b]] to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, for ever and ever. Amen.
In coming to know Christ we become Christ for others and live the beatitudes. Our works become him working in and through us producing 30, 60, or 100 fold. These works are supernatural works. All men can produce natural works but these do not bear the kind of fruit that supernatural works do, i.e. bringing others to Christ, and so they are of little value in the grand scheme of things and when done for selfish reasons can be sinful.
[/quote]
Not sure what you are saying...

How can bringing others to Christ be done for selfish reasons?

[thessalonian]

[quote name='infinitelord1' timestamp='1312432517' post='2281317']
Not sure what you are saying...

How can bringing others to Christ be done for selfish reasons?
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You missed the distinction between supernatural and natural works. I was speaking of natural works here.

[organwerke]

[quote name='Seven77' timestamp='1312052668' post='2278583']
But what if you are in a state of mortal sin? Haven't you basically ceased to be a Christian (other than having records, formal membership, etc.)?
[/quote]

I think that a thing is the faith, another one is holiness.
You are a christian if you received Baptism and believe in the Creed of the Apostoles.
You are a saint if you behave according to your Creed and Jesus' teaching.
I do not think only to "canonized saints": the first christians for example called themsleves saints and it is true because we are all called to be saint.
I think saint Paul too gives some important descriptions of how a true christian should be.
I think a "true christian" is a person who has the faith and also lives according to his faith.

[Guest Semper Fe]

You are a Christian if you follow in Christ's footsteps. You study His life so you can imitate Him, that is, do what He would do in whatever happens during the day.

[emi77]

I recently returned to the church, so this question was obviously a big one for me!

One of the reason i strayed for so long was because, for all my musings about the nature of God and extensive schooling in Religious Studies, I could never really understand the [i]need[/i] for Jesus in one's spiritual life. For me he was a very good man and maybe even a prophet! But that was it. He was not God, whatever the Bible said!

So why do I now consider Jesus as God and the giver of man's salvation? Well it may seem like a simple observation, but for me the neccessity of Jesus' divinity came through a realisation that we, as human and sinful creatures, cannot possibly relate to the eternal and infinite qualities and nature of God. We are nothing like God! Jesus is the necessary [i]way[/i] to God. We cannot hope to relate to God, so, in His infinite Goodness and out of ultimate love, God made himself man so that man could relate accessibly to Him.

John 14:6 ("I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.") suddenly took on a new meaning to me. It was no longer the phrase of a selfish religion that recognised no authority of truth in other religions, but it was the freeing phrase which allowed me finally to know something concrete about God- that Jesus was God incarnate, who allowed man to relate to God AND who died for our sins, allowing us to actually approach God in a comprehensive and respectful way!

Since that major epiphany for me, everything has seemingly started to click into place. Whilst before this epiphany, I knew [i]about[/i] Jesus and knew He was the foundation of the Christian faith, I never [i]knew[/i] Him.

I know it seems silly, but for me it was a real sticking point. Not really understanding Jesus and the fact that I've never been one to passively accept things, led me to fall away from the Church. This resulted in a massive spiritual quest, which is still evolving every day for me. (I am really only[i] just starting[/i] to engage in a relatioship with God, through Jesus, despite having been baptised as a baby!) However, since that epiphany I did consider myself Christian because I finally saw humanity in all its sin and the need for a saviour in order for humans to truly know God. I believe that person was Jesus.

Even the best evangelist could not have moved my heart to faith before this encounter. For me to become Christian, I needed, and with the grace of God, recieved, direct understanding of the Christian faith and Jesus, whose is its crux.

Truly God is good and merciful. When he said "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you." He meant it. It took many years for me to reach such a simple understanding, but I hope that anyone who is searching for God, and who is perhaps considering Catholicism but can't seem to get to grips with its most basic belief, takes heart in my conversion. I am praying for you. Please pray for me.

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[b] How Do You Know You're A Christian?[/b]

By the confidence of one’s strength of mind, by the joy in your heart, by your cheerful disposition

[dells_of_bittersweet]

I'll give my .02

A Christian by definition is a follower of Christ. We enter into Christian life through Baptism. Scripture says "Baptism now saves you." Once we enter into Christian life we continue to be followers of Christ by participating in the Sacraments and cooperating with God's grace in our lives.

However each of us can and do fall into sin, and each time we sin, we walk away from Christ in some degree, depending on the gravity of the sin. However, Christ continually gives us the opportunity to repent, especially through the Sacrament of confession. This is where the phrase "Practicing Catholic" comes in. We say that we are "practicing" because we continually fall, but each time we repent and renew our commitment to follow Christ.

As long as a person continues to repent of thier sins, they are a Christian, no matter how great the sin.

A person would only cease to be a Christian if they chose to stop following Christ. The term for that would be apostacy.