A true Christian, you maybe have heard this phrase before. What does it mean to be a "true" Christian? Lets look at Romans 12 to give us that answer.
Rom 12:1 I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
Rom 12:2 Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Rom 12:3 For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.
Rom 12:4 For as in one body we have many members, and the members do not all have the same function,
Rom 12:5 so we, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members one of another.
Rom 12:6 Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith;
Rom 12:7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;
Rom 12:8 the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.
Rom 12:9 Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Rom 12:10 Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
Rom 12:11 Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
Rom 12:12 Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
Rom 12:13 Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
Rom 12:14 Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
Rom 12:15 Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
Rom 12:16 Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
Rom 12:17 Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
Rom 12:18 If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
Rom 12:19 Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
Rom 12:20 To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head."
Rom 12:21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
(ESV)\
I'm going to focus on verses 9-21, talking about, what it looks like to be a Christian, what you should strive towards, and what God expects you to strive towards.
Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good.
Love what is good, what is good? well, whatever God is, is good. Abhor evil, this means to Hate evil! Don't laugh when somebody says a dirty joke....... don't enjoy sin, but hate it as much as God does. Hold fast to what is good, when in trials, when in pain, when in hard spots... hold fast to the truth, hold fast to Christ the solid rock.
Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.
"one another" is talking about our family in Christ, our brothers and sisters in the faith. Why is there conflict in the church? why is the American church the way it is today? Because those in the American church, don't love each other, because they don't love Christ as He would have them love Him. the second part "outdo one another in showing honor" literally means, we place each other above ourselves, if somebody has a need, we should take care of it, if it's in our power, this should be the same selflessness that Christ showed.
Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord.
If we are slothful, or lazy, are we following Christ? Was Christ lazy? Did Christ neglect his work? No, so if we are lazy, if we are slow, if we neglect our work, we are sinning, and not doing Christ's work.
Be Fervent in Spirit... Fervent actually means "to boil" now... what spirit? The Holy Spirit of course. We are to boil with the Holy Spirit, it should overflow, people should be able to see it in us all the time, and only when we are boiling over with the Holy Spirit, will we be able to effectively "serve the Lord".
Rejoice in hope,
Rejoice... what does that word mean? well I looked back to the original language and this is the definition: (Strong's concordance)
G5463
χαίρω
chairō
khah'ee-ro
A primary verb; to be full of “cheer”, that is, calmly happy or well off; impersonal especially as a salutation (on meeting or parting), be well: - farewell, be glad, God speed, greeting, hail, joy (-fully), rejoice.
I didn't like this definition, so I went to Websters dictionary and I found this To experience joy and gladness in a high degree; to be exhilarated with lively and pleasurable sensations; to exult.
"to experience joy" this is what I was looking for, we are to experience joy, because of, the hope of salvation, and the promise of salvation.
be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer.
These go together, why? because the former can not happen without the latter. The former is also addressed in James
Jas 1:2 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds,
Jas 1:3 for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness.
Jas 1:4 And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
Again, we are to go through trials knowing that it is God's will that we do... (don't let me say that all hard things come from God, because a lot of "trails" are a direct result of our own sin, natural consequences) Why would God want us to go through pain? why would God want us to feel the stress of not knowing how we will make it through a situation? Because it is the testing of our faith, and produces in us, steadfastness, making us be able to overcome whatever stand before us. However, without constant prayer, we will fall during trials, because the trials God puts forth, are enough to overcome us, so that we have to lean on him. Constant prayer, means not that we are always praying, although our spirit should always be being guided by the Holy Spirit, David prayed 7 times a day, others in the Bible had a certain amount of times they prayed every day. However, this amount of time depends on the conviction of the Holy Spirit, there is no set amount of time you should be praying every day.
Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality.
This relates back to the point on "Outdo one another in showing honor." In fact, I would venture to say, that it is the same point twice, because repetition is used in the NT to show especially important things.
Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them.
We are to bless all, the saints, our enemies, everyone. A common misconception is that we must trust them, or we must be their best friend. No, this isn't what it's saying. it's saying if somebody pokes out your eye, don't take out their eye, don't curse them, but pray for them, like Christ did about the Roman soldiers that nailed him to the cross "Father, forgive them, for they know now what they do".
Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep.
When somebody is joyful, or mournful... don't be indifferent. Christ was not indifferent when Lazarus died, he cried, he was mournful, why? Because others were mournful, they felt the loss, he was feeling the loss with them. When somebody has good news, feel joyful with them, congratulate them, don't just tell them "huh" and continue what you are doing. The main point of this, is to be interested in the lives of others, don't be looking at yourself, or your circumstances so much that you can't be interested in the lives of others.Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight.
Be peaceful with each other, don't cause strife within the body of Christ, that both ruins your witness to the community, as does it also distract you from the focus on Christ. (there will still be conflict, Peter and Paul for example, but don't cause strife as far as it goes with you) Don't be haughty.... in other words, don't be prideful, don't ever think of yourself better than any other human, because the only reason you are different, is because God allowed you to be different, and because of His saving grace. "associate with the lowly" I think this relates to James chapter 2:1-4
Jas 2:1 My brothers, show no partiality as you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory.
Jas 2:2 For if a man wearing a gold ring and fine clothing comes into your assembly, and a poor man in shabby clothing also comes in,
Jas 2:3 and if you pay attention to the one who wears the fine clothing and say, "You sit here in a good place," while you say to the poor man, "You stand over there," or, "Sit down at my feet,"
Jas 2:4 have you not then made distinctions among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?
Don't be mistreating the poor, don't be favoring your time with the rich, because they are rich. Be spending your time with people, because of who they are in Christ, not because of who they are according to the world.
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all.
The first part of this is kind of repeating: "Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them." But it is different....the phrase "but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all".... what exactly does this phrase mean? what does it refer to? Let me quote the KJV (I think it translates this better) Recompense to no man evil for evil. Provide things honest in the sight of all men. We are not to steal because somebody stole from us, we are not to cheat, because we were cheated. We are to be fair, we are to be graceful, and we are to be honest. "Provide things honest in the sight of all men", this literally means: When you obtain material things, go about it honestly, don't steal food, don't steal for food... work for it, get is honestly.
If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.
A repeat of "live in harmony with one another" with the added clause of "as far as it depends on you" which clarifies that it may happen no matter what you do to prevent it.
Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, "Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord."
"forgive and you shall be forgiven" if you look at the word avenge it has an interesting meaning (Websters dictionary) Avenged
AVENG'ED, pp. Satisfied by the punishment of the offender; vindicated; punished.
We want to feel like the wrongs against us have been righted, but God says that he will repay to the offender what is owed, and that we should forgive, so we can be forgiven. How many times have we sinned? They are uncountable by you! each time you sinned, the proper punishment was death. Yet you have been forgiven, and are not going to die. All God asks, is that you forgive those who sin against you.
To the contrary, "if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head."
When you feed your enemy, when you treat him with kindness, he will not understand it, and will probably feel foolish, and will feel stupid for being your enemy.
Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
When you are following God, and let his Spirit indwell you, you can overcome evil, you can deny it access to your heart, and you can help those that are not saved, when they do evil against you, do good to them, and if it be in God's will, you will overcome their evil, with God's good.
Hopefully this was an encouragement to you, either to change to become more like this, or that you have been doing right! Let me encourage those of you like myself that still falter and fail in part of this or even all of this: You can't do this by yourself, and while on earth, no man has done this to the perfection of Christ. However ,don't let Satan catch you in the trap of "oh I'm not good enough for God, so I might as well give up". While this is partly true, it truly is false. You are not good enough for God, and if you trust in yourself, you should give up, However, should you trust in Christ, the perfecter of the saints, the one who died for the whole world's sins, there is hope! DO NOT give up! because unless you give up on Christ, he will never give up on you, and he will complete the work he started.
Christ reigns in my heart and many others, and can reign in yours also, should you be lacking his reign in your life.
