Out and about I come across different types of Christians. I don’t mean in terms of the official denominations, but rather, different as regards their understanding of what being a Christian is all about. These different views cut across all the official denominations and seem to have as their basis, the degree to which Christianity involves a relationship.

There are a great many folks who call themselves Christians on the basis that they believe, give intellectual assent to, the facts known about Jesus from the Gospel stories in the Bible.

Throughout the New Testament is found verses that say one simply has to believe in order to be saved - for example, the well-known oft-quoted John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Taking that verse on it’s own, a belief in Jesus as God’s Son, the Saviour, the Messiah, leads to one’s salvation.

But is that all there is to it?

If that is all, then it is a pretty simple matter to give a nod to the notion and then get on with one’s life as before. What is there to lose? It would seem the sensible thing to do, just on the offchance that all this Christianity stuff is for real and hell is indeed the eternal destination for those who don’t nod their heads at some point before they die.

Elsewhere in the Gospels we read Jesus saying a little more to folk than that they must just believe. He actually says “follow me” and invites people to forgo their former way of doing things. Then as though that isn’t enough, He tells folk that they need to repent of the wrong things that they do as well. The crunch really comes when one realizes just exactly who Jesus actually is. Conviction of wrongdoing, of missing the mark, requires nothing less than humbling oneself before God and asking for His forgiveness. The proud who cannot do this will turn away, and as Jesus said Himself, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9: 12, 13)

As I see it, being a Christian means being a follower of Christ. It means in particular, having a personal, living and loving, dynamic relationship with Christ. It involves at some point making a conscious decision, accepting the invitation to follow. Those who stop at an intellectual acknowledgement and nothing more, who are Christians only by virtue of their culture, are missing out on this full relationship. The relationship is one of mutual love, of being drawn closer to Him and wanting to do what He wants of us. As Jesus said, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. He who does not love me will not obey my teaching“. (John 14: 23, 24)

John 14: 15 “If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16 And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17 the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18 I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19 Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20 On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21 Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him.”

Believing is an act of faith, of exercising trust in God, a trust that deepens and strengthens as the relationship grows, and although God’s purposes are not always fully known, there is the assurance of His love and faithfulness towards us no matter whatever happens in this world. With this assurance comes a peace that is not of the world at all.

Much of this is hard to understand by those whose relationship with Him has not yet begun, or is very new or tentative, or is stuck somehow - and by those who see the whole Christianity thing as just one big silly nonsense.