“Christian” can mean so many things today, can’t it?  There’s “Christian” music, “Christian” tv, “Christian” bubble gum?!  It kind of saddens me that it’s dumbed down to a label.  Dumbed down to a sales piece or something to monopolize.  The problem with the term is it’s being re-defined all the time.  Everyone has a new definition.  What’s yours?

I’m feel like i’m caught in this place where I’m the victim of the label!  I want to lovingly express the relationship I have with God, but find myself fearful of what that will mean to others.  At least when “cliche” terms are utilized.

Do they believe Christians are only out for money?  Is that was “Christian” means to them?  Do they believe Christians are only concerned with judgement or rules?  Is that what “Christian” means to them?

When I tell people I’m a Christian, what do they think it means?  Should that affect me somehow?

I think there’s a lot of confusion, and I want to be sensitive to it, not just keep using labels that dont’ mean much.  That would just be stupid.

I know there are a lot of people that “claim” to be “Christians” and do a lot of stupid things.  I’m one of them.  The problem is, people see that and start to associate the label with hypocrisy.  And rightly so!  We are a bunch of hypocrites because we preach one thing and live another.  We’re dumb like that.

But truth is never determined by those who follow truth.  If I am a follower of “Mathematics” and go around saying 2+4=7, that makes me a bad Mathmatician, a bad follower, but doesn’t make math in itself false or less true.  It simply makes me a bad representative of such truth.

It’s the same of “Christian” faith.  At the heart, “Christian” simply means a follower of Christ Jesus.  Christians fail in such an effort all the time, but that doesn’t make Christianity false…it just makes Christians false.  I’ll be the first to admit we do a bad job at representing truth.  Enough to make you doubt whether it’s compelling enough truth or truth at all.

I’m not afraid to admit that.  Too many Christians don’t.  That’s why “Christian” gets redefined as an “elitist, judgemental, hypocritical” group, instead of it’s core meaning.

I am a Christian.  I am a follower of Christ.  Not because I want money, fame, blessing, to condemn you to hell or send you to heaven, to judge your actions or act like I know it all.

I’m a Christian because a) I know there’s a God, we all do. b) I know I’m a broken man with sin to account for c) and I know God’s son Christ died for me in the ultimate act of mercy and grace.

My Christianity (it’s my hope) extends far beyond cliche’s or modern definitions.  Beyond Christian bubble gum or bumper stickers.  It’s a relationship.  And as fake as we can be sometimes…He’s not.  I promise you that.