Can you be a Christian and _______________?
There are different ways to approach this question. It depends on what you mean by Christian, lower-case c or upper-case C. Do you mean outwardly looking like a church-goer? Or do you mean belonging to the capital K Kingdom of God, being a Christ-Follower? Being Saved? Because if you mean this second and I would say real meaning of capital C Christian then there is a sort of easy answer. Two No’s and mostly Yes’s but they are dangerous yes’s… ask yourself is that thing you’re filling in the blank with and saying yes to glorifying the Lord?
We need some fill in the blanks to work with:
Shout them out but one at a time.
Probable:
A Muslim/Hindu/Buddhist/etc…
still sin/ sexual sin
not go to church
not believe parts of the Bible
not forgive
Get divorced
Smoke Marijuana/Drink Alcohol/tattoos/piercings
…
Categories
Be another Religion or have another belief structure too
No. Thou shalt have no other gods than me. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul and all your mind and all your strength and your neighbor as yourself.
Take into or onto your body substances
It is not what enters into a man that defiles him but the words that come from his mouth… Paul tells Timothy to take a little wine instead of only drinking water so that he doesn’t get sick… Jesus’ first miracle was turning water into wine… The Bible also says do not be drunk with wine but be drunk with the Holy Spirit.
Now, can you be a Christian and take chemicals, drugs, alcohols, into your body? yes… but… is that the way to Glorify God? I’ve heard that in England after church the pastors all meet up with their congregations in the PUB and drink beer and watch soccer and have a big time of fellowship together, perhaps that is where the most actual ministry happens side by side in comraderie… or are you and alcoholic? Are you putting your NEED for beer ahead of your commitment to God? Is it a sin for you that is ruining your witness?
not go to church
Do not forsake the coming together of the brethren… the church is not perfect… the church will fail you… the people will frustrate you… and the church is God’s plan for the Kingdom, it’s what He set up for discipline His people… if you see problems in the church then maybe you have been brought into that church for such a time as this and are being called to help… to display humility and wisdom and consistency… to bless and not curse… to be long-suffering with the faults of others… to LOVE! They will know we are Christians by our love…
Now, can you be a Christian and not go to church… yes… but… is that the way to Glorify God?
not believe parts of the bible
All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching, exhortation, and training in righteousness. So you have a problem with something the Bible says. Well, you have a problem then. Are you humble enough to say that probably it’s you that are wrong or that you have a wrong interpretation of what the Word of God says or are you really going to say that God is wrong?
Can you be a Christian and not believe parts of the bible? Yes… but… you’re wrong… and it’s going to make everything else EXTREMELY hard for you. If you pick and choose what to believe then how can anyone help you with what the bible is saying to them. You are empted with every quotation of the bible that you need to weigh it like you have eaten from the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil and you have set yourself up as the one who knows what is right and wrong, you have set yourself up to be above God Himself… In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God… so the temptation to put yourself above God is right there waiting at the door when you say that you aren’t going to believe parts of the bible… this could be a grievous error.
not forgive
If you don’t forgive others your Heavenly Father will not forgive you. I think this verse can be used as a club to beat people with, well you better forgive that person who committed the horrendous crime against you because you want Jesus to forgive you dontcha? Well, Jesus forgives those who humble themselves and turn from their wicked ways. I believe that you should have a posture of being ready to forgive, but you are not more gracious than God Himself. But, if there is genuine repentance, God will forgive. And, if there is genuine repentance then you need to forgive. But, be ready to forgive, don’t hold bitterness in your heart against the person, be in a posture ready to forgive.
Can you be a Christian and not forgive?… yes… but I would say you haven’t forgiven yet and you plan on it and you hope for it and you desire to be able to forgive someday! That is the way God feels when He longs to forgive us… He hasn’t forgiven everybody, but He desires to and so should you.
sin/ including sexual sin
A Pastor wanted to find out if His congregation had been learning what he had been teaching so he asked: “Can anyone tell me what you must do before you can get forgiveness from God?”
-A little boy in the back yelled out sin!
-He was looking for the answer [ask forgiveness and turn from that sin which we call repentence]
However, the little boy was right, you can’t be forgiven without sinning.
And, a major way that God is glorified is through His desire to forgive! So, you will sin. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone… and they all walked away.
Our God has a big eraser.
People falsely say, “I believe in the God of the NT but I have a problem with the God of the OT. In the OT He was harsh and rash and judgemental but in the NT He is loving and forgiving.” NOT TRUE!
He is the same yesterday and today and forever!
The God of the OT is the same as the God of the NT!
From Genesis to Revelation We serve a Forgiving God!
David in Psalm 86.5
“Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me.”
Psalm 86:4-7 ESV
The Lord passing by Moses delivering the 10 Commandments in Exodus 34
“The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.””
Exodus 34:6-7 ESV
The prophet Micah after complaining about his wicked generation declares this about God in Micah 7
“Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity and passing over transgression for the remnant of his inheritance? He does not retain his anger forever, because he delights in steadfast love. He will again have compassion on us; he will tread our iniquities underfoot. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.”
Micah 7:18-19 ESV
Did you know that the lowest part of the ocean is 36,000 feet deep. I’ve dove down ten feet and the pressure made my ears feel funny. I really thought I was something. Now, if you dove to the deepest part of the ocean, you wouldn’t literally see all the sins down there but the point is they are gone. He separates our sin from us and puts it unfathomably far away. We should not dredge it up. We should ot choose to remember what God has chosen to forget. God has thrown our sin into the sea of forgetfulness and posted a sign that says “NO FISHING ALLOWED!”
Forgiveness is clearly in the OT.
Forgiveness is very clearly in the NT… do we have to look any further than Jesus dying on the cross and being ready to forgive the very people that pounded the spikes into his wrists and feet. Father, forgive them for thy know not what they do.
1 John 1:9
If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us.
The only sin that God will not forgive is the sin that we will not confess.
But we read in Matthew 12 that there is one unforgivable sin or one unpardonable sin… the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.
“Then a demon-oppressed man who was blind and mute was brought to him, and he healed him, so that the man spoke and saw. And all the people were amazed, and said, “Can this be the Son of David?” But when the Pharisees heard it, they said, “It is only by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, that this man casts out demons.” Knowing their thoughts, he said to them, “Every kingdom divided against itself is laid waste, and no city or house divided against itself will stand. And if Satan casts out Satan, he is divided against himself. How then will his kingdom stand? And if I cast out demons by Beelzebul, by whom do your sons cast them out? Therefore they will be your judges. But if it is by the Spirit of God that I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God has come upon you. Or how can someone enter a strong man’s house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man? Then indeed he may plunder his house. Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters. Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come. “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.””
Matthew 12:22-37 ESV
There is an unforgivable sin and according to Jesus it is the blasphemy of the Holy Spirit!
“Therefore I tell you, every sin and blasphemy will be forgiven people, but the blasphemy against the Spirit will not be forgiven. And whoever speaks a word against the Son of Man will be forgiven, but whoever speaks against the Holy Spirit will not be forgiven, either in this age or in the age to come.”
Now, these scribes and teachers were insanely jealous of Jesus because He was bad for business. The common people loved Jesus, He was understandable, approachable, compassionate, and the common people heard Him gladly. He was understood by children and by the greatest intellects of the day… and they wanted to stop Jesus and they attributed the works and words of Jesus to Satan. Be careful. We live in a hyper-critical day where Christians will criticize other Christians. Be careful when God is working and you are saying that is not a work of God. You better have bible grounds, you better have dotted your i s and crossed your t s and be in humble submission to pastors and elders that are over you… you better be in prayer… you better be fasting… you better be REALLY SURE!!! Not everything is an act of God.
The church is a dangerous place.
The church is the place where blasphemy of the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin can happen. You see the Holy Spirit MUST be at work and you MUST say NO!!! THAT IS SATAN!!!
Now, can SATAN come into a church, you better believe he can and you better be on guard for his treachery trying to steal the sheep… but he comes in most likely as a wolf in sheep clothing… that super-holy Christian that has everything just right and has a criticism of everything and how it should be done…
How can you stop worrying about whether you are blaspheming the Holy Spirit? Don’t speak against the Holy Spirit. If you are unsure about something, if it feels funny, if that was strange, consult an elder, ask the pastor, read your bible, pray!!! People take this so lightly and it’s a heavy thing to decide whether something is or is not the Holy Spirit.
In the garden of Eden they ate from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and thought they would become like God, knowing good from evil… and we do this still today, we want to judge for ourselves whether something is good or evil and what we need to do is humbly submit that judgment to God.
Can a Christian have doubts?
Doubt is a matter of the mind. Unbelief is a matter of the will. It’s a choice one makes. The Pharisees were full of unbelief. They did not reject Jesus for lack of evidence or because He was not consistent with what he said. He was the perfect example. Even Pontius Pilate said, I find no fault in him..Judas Iscariot who betrayed Him said, I have betrayed innocent blood. Jesus was a model of everything He said. People reject Jesus because He interferes with the way they want to live.
So, can a christian have doubts? Yes… but, pray for your faith to be increased and he is faithful to do it… don’t stay in your doubts because it is a road that leads toward unbelief. Doubts don’t bring Glory to God. Humility does.
So, in closing let’s pray for the Lord to strengthen us in all these things… that we would Glorify God with what we do… that He would not lead us into temptation but deliver us from evil.
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