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A few weeks ago, I wrote about four major reasons why some Christians don’t act like Christians, and how such behavior could turn others away from the faith. Read the article here (www.nikiheat.com/4-reasons-why-some-christians-dont-act-like-christians/).
As born again Christians, the world not only hears us, it watches us; and as the saying goes, actions speak louder than words. Therefore, acting like a Christian is more powerful than telling people you are one.
My article today is about how an individual Christian should respond when another Christian behaves contrary to God’s word. The emphasis here is on individual Christian as opposed to the response of the Church.
When Christians don’t act like Christians, should you turn away from the faith? Should you pick up a sledge hammer to judge and condemn? Or is there a better way to respond that neither hurts your faith nor passes judgment on other people?
I absolutely believe there are better ways to respond. Condemning and criticizing others, even when well-intentioned is not the answer and hardly brings genuine change. However, before I proceed, I’d like to emphasize that Christians are not perfect as there will always be a time when genuine followers of Christ don’t act like they should.
So how do you respond?
Below is a list of four potential responses, all beginning with the word, “Look.” Practically, these are not the only responses, but they kind of involve everything if broken up.
When a Christian doesn’t act like a Christian, you should
Look inward
Before you point a finger, let the faultfinding start with your own self. Let him that is without sin cast the first stone says a popular passage in the Bible (John 8:7).
As humans, we tend to be very self-protective and often notice faults in others before admitting our own failures. But Jesus calls us hypocrites if we’re quick to point out the sins of others without first examining ourselves (Matthew 7:1-5). Because if we examine our own lives, we might discover that we are worse. You might not be in the spotlight for a sexual scandal, but your razor-sharp tongue may be a deadlier poison on the people around you.
Another advantage to looking inward is that it helps you to be gracious in your response to others when they fail. Christians are sinners saved by grace. Even after salvation, we’re still broken, still desperately in need of God’s grace and mercy.
Look beyond the surface
Many people are scarred, and their actions, even sinful behavior, can be symptoms of deep-seated traumatic experiences that have never been dealt with. Imagine a Christian woman who even though she attends church regularly and prays fervently, has anger and bitterness issues in almost demonic proportions. When you want to write her off for being a hypocrite, you discover she was abused as a child and has never healed. Would your response to her unchristian behavior be different?
I believe you’d be more sympathetic, unless you’re a Pharisee who tithes mint, dill, and cumin but forgets the weightier matters of the law which are justice, mercy, and faith (Matthew 23:23)
Look for love in your correction (Galatians 6:1)
It is an expression of Christian love to turn a believer from sin. However, your motive and manner of correction is even more important than your act of correcting. As Christians, we are messengers of reconciliation, not ambassadors of condemnation. If you can’t find a loving way to correct your brother or sister, don’t do it. Maybe you should rather pray for them than seek to confront their sin.
Love doesn’t mean mildness. Love can and should be tough sometimes, but always aimed at winning back your brother to the right path.
While correction will not always result in positive change, your task as a fellow Christian is not to arm-twist someone, but to expose them to the truth.
Look up to God
We cannot deny that when Christians don’t act like Christ, it can negatively impact the faith of others. It can turn people away from their faith or encourage complacency among believers. Unfortunately, this is something we see today, something the Lord Jesus prophesied about that when iniquity abounds, the love of the majority will grow cold (Matthew 24:12)
To look up to God in the midst of lukewarm Christianity is the only way to keep your faith unshaken. Jesus is the author and the finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2). With this perspective, you cannot think of walking away or embracing sin when other Christians act contrary to the Bible.
To wrap up, when Christians don’t act like Christians, it can be hard to respond the right way. We’re quick to judge and condemn. Yet we must desperately seek the right response that doesn’t destroy our faith and that doesn’t hurt other people.
Thank you and God Bless
AkuBai
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Read more of my articles
4 Reasons Why Christians Don’t Act Like Christians
Our Newness of Life, Today and Beyond
Notre Nouveauté De Vie, Aujourd’hui Et Au-Delà
Should Gospel Artists Perform at Night Clubs?
Rise Up, Authentic Woman!
If you asked a group of Christians what holiness meant to them, or what they understood to be the purpose of holiness, you would get a lot of different answers. This is because holiness is one of the most misunderstood religious concepts.
What is holiness?
For the purpose of this writeup, I’ll stay away from discussing the doctrines of holiness; instead, I’ll define the concept of holiness as “a life that abstains from what the Bible shows to be sin and evil, a life separated from the world and dedicated to the Lord”.
The purpose of such a life is to obey and glorify the Lord and to testify to the world that we are truly born-again as new creations in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). In Christ, we are declared righteous, our new nature is like God: truly holy (Ephesians 4:24). This therefore makes holy living a natural result of becoming a Christian. But experience shows that holiness doesn’t always come naturally for the majority of believers, even those who’ve been born-again for many years. Why? I’ll tell you in a moment, but first permit me to make this point: the purpose of holiness is never to earn salvation.
The Bible is very firm that salvation is a gift of God’s grace because of the sacrifice of His Son for the sins of the world. That gift is received by faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). This salvation by grace is a foundational truth of Christianity that differentiates it from the other religions whose adherents must fulfill a set of rules and regulations to be accepted by God.
A misunderstanding of holiness and its purpose is the reason many Christians live defeated lives. It is impossible to live in faith, joy, and victory over sin when you believe you have to tick a list of do’s and don’ts to gain God’s favor. When you’re more conscious of your sins than you are about God, there’s no fulfillment in the Christian life. But when you embrace the truth that Jesus paid the penalty for your sins and the Holy Spirit has been given to help mould you into the image of the Son of God, holiness ceases to be a burden.
Step 1: Know your new reality as a believer
The first step in living a Holy life after you’ve become born-again is to know and believe who God says you are in Christ.
Many people refer to this new identity as New Creation Realities. And indeed, they are realities, truths about us that we must be conscious of always, because it is easier to focus on our old nature or try to live as though we didn’t receive a new nature at salvation.
It is easier to live from who you already are than it is to become someone you think you are not.
For example, when you believe you are dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus (Romans 6:11), it is easier to live victoriously over sin than when you believe you’re just a poor sinner trying to become holy.
However, one might ask, “what about the people who claim to believe in New Creation Realities, yet live contrary to those same realities?”
I strongly believe that a majority of Christians find themselves in this situation: they claim to believe one thing but act out the opposite. It can be easier to conclude that they must not be true Christians, but that is not always the case.
Step 2: Spend time with God in His word and in prayer
To live in line with the New Creation Realities, you must spend enough time with God regularly. Until the Lord returns and completes our redemption in giving us glorified bodies, there’ll always be a battle between our flesh and our spirit. (Romans 7:15-23). We constantly find ourselves desiring or doing the things we shouldn’t.
But when you spend time with God in His word and in prayer, you give dominion to your spirit. And so you find it easier to obey God and to live in agreement with your new reality. The opposite happens when you are prayer-less and don’t meditate on the word.
You see, it’s not hard to live holy. Know who you are in Christ—declared righteous and holy—and then make intimacy with God your life focus. Even though you will still fail in some areas, your overall life will increasingly become more and more like Jesus!
Thank you and God Bless
~AkuBai
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Read more of my articles
When Christians Don’t Act Like Christians (How to Respond Without Hurting Your Faith and Other People)
4 Reasons Why Christians Don’t Act Like Christians
Our Newness of Life, Today and Beyond
Notre Nouveauté De Vie, Aujourd’hui Et Au-Delà
Should Gospel Artists Perform at Night Clubs?
Rise Up, Authentic Woman!
Happy Easter, my friends. The tomb is empty, for death could not hold our Savior captive. Hallelujah!
As we celebrate, I want us to reflect on the significance of this great day. Easter is the most important Christian celebration; more important than Christmas, Good Friday, and even Ascension. It is the very foundation of our faith.
Because our Lord conquered death:
We are saved and declared righteous before God when we believe in Jesus. Our slate is clean because His resurrection secured His justification of us before the Father. (Romans 4:25, Romans 10:9)
We can walk in newness of life, victorious over sin (Romans 6:4-11)
We have a living hope, not a dead one! (1 Peter 1:3). If Jesus never rose from the dead, He would have been just another great religious leader, and our faith in Him giving us life would be vain.
But see, He’s the life giver because He’s alive forever more. So, we have the hope of eternal life. (1 Corinthians 15)
We can trust God’s promises to get fulfilled at their appointed time because Christ’s Resurrection was the fulfillment of hundreds-years-old prophecy (Psalm 16:10, Acts 13:35)
How to Live EVERY DAY Like Easter
Christ’s resurrection may be commemorated in one day, but it’s relevance to everyday Christian living cannot be limited to a day. Easter is and should be an everyday Christian experience.
As new creations, we’re alive to God, to live in unbroken fellowship with Him. Let us therefore walk as the new people that we are in Christ by rejecting everything that doesn’t glorify God. Let us live in the resurrection reality every day.
Once again, Happy Easter!
AkuBai
Follow me on social media
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4 Reasons Why Christians Don’t Act Like Christians
When Christians Don’t Act Like Christians (How to Respond Without Hurting Your Faith and Other People)
Should Gospel Artists Perform at Night Clubs?
Rise Up, Authentic Woman!
I recently met a Christian sister who experienced a serious crisis of faith. Though she didn’t walk away from Christ, she considered it. Therefore, as we commemorate Palm Sunday, I want us take a minute for some self-introspection into our actions as Christians.
This Christian sister stopped attending church service and neither prayed nor read her Bible. When I approached her to find out what was happening, she confessed that one of the reasons for her crisis of faith was the gross absence of holiness among those who called themselves Christians. She decried the moral failures, unchecked gossiping, hatred, jealousy, backstabbing, division, and fear amongst many Bible-thumbing, church-passionate people.
While this sister willingly acknowledged her own shortcomings as a Christian, she underwent serious soul searching at the end of which was an epiphany about why Christians don’t always act like Christians.
Before I share these reason with you, I’ll preface it by saying that these are not excuses for unchristian living. If you’re a Christian, strive to live as one. When you confess one thing and act out something different, your actions confuse those around you.
Why Some Christians Don’t Resemble Christ
Inherited Christianity
Christianity seems to be the default religion in this part of Africa unless you are born into a Muslim, animist or other non-Christian family. Many, if not a majority of persons posing as Christians have never experienced the saving power of Jesus Christ. They may attend church and hold leadership positions there. Unfortunately, that doesn’t make them Christian.
According to 1 Corinthians 5:17, anyone who is in Christ is a new creation. That doesn’t mean they are perfect. It means that over time, as they follow God’s word and yield to the Holy Spirit’s molding, their character changes more and more into that of a true follower of Christ. An inherited Christian doesn’t have this “new creation” nature and may have no guilt about living contrary to the teachings of the Bible.
Intentionally False Christians
This is something the Bible says is a reality in Christendom; wolves in sheep’s clothing.
A person can pretend to be a Christian or attend church for various reasons. Some see church as a source of income or as a means of achieving elusive personal goals like marriage or pregnancy. They don’t seek God and therefore don’t care about growing in Christ’s likeness. Sadly, the world doesn’t know who is truly born again and who is pretending. All they see is the “Christian” label.
Less Discipleship, More Protocol
This is perhaps the biggest reason amongst some believers who make Christianity more about dogma, rules, and regulations, and less about serving Christ.
Jesus’s model of discipleship shows that a Christian grows just like a seed which flourishes when put in the right growth environment. This means that with solid Bible teachings and loving accountability, a new convert will grow into a mature Christian.
However, when it becomes more about rules and protocol, new Christians cannot grow. This explains why some believers are mean, nasty, and judgmental towards other people. In their view, they are dealing with other people the harsh way they believe God deals with them.
Too Busy to Have Time with God
This is another big cause of the absence of Christian behavior amongst some believers. Regular personal Bible studies and prayer re the ingredients which sustain the spiritual life of a believer. A Christian who prays more tends to gossips less and so on. This logic applies to basically every other sin common among Christians.
Sadly, many put a premium on church activities, and become so busy to the extent that they don’t have time for fellowship with God. They are busy for Him in public, but don’t have time for Him in private. As a result, they lack the power to resist when temptation comes knocking. When a Christian with a good standing in public is suddenly exposed for something like sexual misconduct, many people are shocked, but fail to understand the cause. It is because they got too busy and stopped fellowshipping with God.
This list if by no means exhaustive and I pray these reasons also help a failing Christian to pick up from where they had fallen asleep on the wheel.
Part 2 of this post will talk about how an individual Christian should respond when fellow Christians don’t represent true Christianity.
God bless you,
AkuBai
Follow me on social media
https://www.facebook.com/AkuBaiOfficial
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Read more of my articles
When Christians Don’t Act Like Christians (How to Respond Without Hurting Your Faith and Other People)
Our Newness of Life, Today and Beyond
Should Gospel Artists Perform at Night Clubs?
Rise Up, Authentic Woman!