WHAT THE GOOD CHRISTIAN DOESN’T KNOW

“You don’t have to go to church to be a good Christian”. If I’ve heard it once I’ve heard it a thousand times. By nature I’m a pretty easy-going guy, but I have to be honest, every time I hear this comment I bristle because it always seems to spring from an attitude of superiority, not to mention the fact that it’s just plain false.

I ask you, why would Jesus lay down his life to birth the church if the church were a take-it-or-leave-it proposition? Also, what does being a “good Christian” really mean? Ask this question of the one who pooh pooh’s the need for the church and you’ll probably hear something like this…being a good Christian means believing in Jesus and living a good moral life.

Ridiculous!

On more than one occasion Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” (Matthew 16:24) This is the measure of the good Christian life, nothing less. What Jesus is telling us is that the good Christian life involves sacrifice. It involves sitting with the dying neighbor, having breakfast with the lonely widower, sharing pain with the depressed colleague, standing up for the social loser and showing love to the hostile adversary. In short, the good Christian life is hard, very hard, so hard that the believer who takes it seriously doesn’t run from the church, he runs toward it. Why? Because the good Christian life is so physically, emotionally and spiritually draining that it craves the renewal that only God’s community can provide.

The next time someone tells you that a person can be a good Christian and avoid the church remember this, their comment says more about them than it does about the church.

Love and blessings,

David