What Kind of Christian

What Kind of Christian?

Someone asked me what kind of Christian I was. Was I with a so called main line church, Presbyterian, Anglican, Catholic, etc. or was I an evangelical. A Baptist or Pentecostal type.
I said I was a Christian.
I do not like labels when it comes to my faith. Friends do call me a liberal evangelical but that’s largely because I’m hard to define.
I simply call myself a Christian and try and live up to the teachings of Christ. There are far to many “types of Christians” today. Not only that many who label themselves Christian and have pulpits in the media are not Christians at all.
I see my job as a Christian as one of reaching out to all people. I believe the God I worship is an all inclusive God.
I believe Jesus would have sat down and ate with gay’s and members of the LGBT community. That he would have reached out to them in love and not criticized them because of their lifestyle.
Jesus certainly sat down with tax collectors and sinners the bible tell us that in Matthew nine.
Sadly many pastors and evangelist in the media and in may local churches, cannot sit down with not just the gay community, but other groups, simply because they’ve poisoned  the waters so to speak.
They’ve in some cases virtually shouted from the housetops  Gay’s and Lesbians are going to hell and said the same about many others.
The bible doesn’t say that. A gay man can just as easily get to heaven as Billy Graham.
Paul writing to the Romans states,
“for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.”
                                               Romans 3:23,24.
That all means you, me, Billy Graham and anyone else who has ever been born. Not only that we cannot be good enough to enter heaven. That is why Christ came.
Christ came to not only pay the price for OUR sin but to point us the way to God and eternal life.
Paul writing to the Ephesians states,
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God—  not by works, so that no one can boast.”
                                                                     Ephesians 2:8,9.
No man can look into the heart of another and know why they are the way they are. Only God knows what makes a person tick.
The Psalmist wrote,
“For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. 
My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth, your eyes saw my unformed body. All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.” 
                                                                  Psalm 139:13-16.
It is precisely because only God knows what goes on inside us that Christ admonishes us not to judge (Matthew 7:1,2).
Rather Jesus said,
“Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.  
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” 
                                                                        Matthew 28:18-20.
This for me is what a Christian should be doing. Pointing the way to Christ and teaching new converts the ways of Christ.
God will one day Judge all humanity but then he is God and has that right.
The important thing for me is making sure those I know and those I have a chance to speak to verbally or by the written word are given the opportunity to come to know Christ as their Lord and Saviour.
Do you. Do you have assurance that were you to die today that you would go to heaven?
Think about it.