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What makes you a Christian....

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Silentbolt

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"What makes you a christian?" i the question i often ask my christian club.
So often these days we have christians who are just lazy in their faith who just sit around and keep telling themselves that they are saved so there is no more work to be done. But it is the complete opposite than that.
The bible tells us that we are saved by faith. and later it says that faith with out deeds is dead.
see even satan himself has faith in God because he was once an angle. So if we only have faith and no deeds what seperates us from the devil? that is why we need to back up our faith with actions that express our faith and express the love that we have inside us that is form God.
I just encourage you guys to examine yourselves and ask yourselves that question "what makes you a christian?"
 

bluegreysky

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To be a christian, you must believe jesus was the son of God and came and died on the cross to forgive your sins and rose again...
Believing that with all your heart and welcoming Christ in, God will give you a conviction when you sin. Then you will want to repent and avoid temptation.
Being christian means being "Christ-like"...and Christ never sinned.
Humans sin all the time. Its our nature. If all your sins are forgiven, because you asked Christ into your heart and repented of the sin,
and you are listening to that conviction when you are headed into a bad place, you are definitely setting a good example as a Christian.

To grow in that faith, read the bible and try to apply it to your daily life.
 
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mhsbroncos2005

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Wow..this is very good and the points made are great. When I look at this it makes go back and see that I have had made some poor choices and sometimes I never asked for to be forgiven of what I have done. Sometimes I forgot to ask Christ for forgivness of a sin. Now if I can just do what bluegreysky mentioned I think that I will be alright as a Christian. I do believe that Jesus died for us and rose off that cross to help all of us. I am going to take the approach to put him first everyday like it use to do and just pray when it is needed, because if I do then I will know I am being that Christian and grow with the faith each day and just be the person that I want to be. At least when I get up each morning when I move to my new place there will be the cross sitting right in front of me in the window facing the sunrise coming from the east and it will remind what to do each day.

 
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Silentbolt

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^i agree^
i believe that we are saved by faith, but what is faith? i think that faith consists of believing and acting out what you hear.
So what i think makes you a christian is that you believe in jesus AND strive daily to fulfill the will of God. i think most of the time people forget that word "AND". some people think that they can continue going on with there old ways and still be a christian, but God calls us to repent (turn from our old ways) and daily do the will of God.
 
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LilLamb219

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We can't make ourselves into Christians, only God can turn us into them by working within us. Otherwise you're getting into works righteousness.

It's ok to encourage Christians to live a godly life, but be careful that you aren't promoting something instead of "by grace through faith".

Faith without works is dead...but it's not works that get us to heaven. Works come about BECAUSE of faith.
 
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ephraimanesti

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Perhaps it helps to keep in mind that Scripture delineates two sides to the Salvation coin--JUSTIFICATION which only our Lord Jesus, through His life, death, resurrection, and glorification at the right hand of the Father could provide--in that we were nailed to the cross with Him, were buried with Him, and rose to new life with Him, being cleansed from our sins and freed from the power of our Old Sinful Man.

The other side of the coin is SANCTIFICATION in which, with the Power and Guidance of the indwelling Holy Spirit, we struggle to grow, develop, and transform into the image of Christ--Christian meaning "Christ-like."

In short--FAITH BRINGS JUSTIFICATION, WORKS BRINGS SANCTIFICATION. Together they equal SALVATION.

There is much more to being a Christian than a 1 minute altar-call followed by the long wait for the rapture!

IN CHRIST,
ephraim
 
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LilLamb219

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ephraimanesti said:
In short--FAITH BRINGS JUSTIFICATION, WORKS BRINGS SANCTIFICATION. Together they equal SALVATION.

There is much more to being a Christian than a 1 minute altar-call followed by the long wait for the rapture!

IN CHRIST,
ephraim
Click to expand...

I'm Lutheran. We don't do altar calls and we view the rapture differently than what other denoms believe.

Justification and Sanctification are both God's work within us. We do not cooperate in our justification and in our sanctification we are doing what God had planned ahead of time for us to do.

Fish swim, birds fly, and Christians do good works. We are Christians and we do good works...but doing good works does not make us Christian.
 
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Silentbolt

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AMEN!
i lead a christian club on my school campus and i see those people who just go down to the altar and then never change from there old ways, Are they really Christians?
there is so much more that God has to offer, he has to offer a lifetime of blessings through him ect.
i am not saying that your actions is what makes you a christian i am saying that if you truely are a follower of Christ you will be led by the spirit to fulfill good works.
 
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ephraimanesti

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It seems to me sometimes that this process of santification is circular--or, more accurately, an upward spiral--the more good works you do, the more Christ-like you become . . . . and the more Christ-like you become, the more good works you do. The reason for this is, of course, that the more Christ-like a person becomes, the more room and power is given to the Holy Spirit within to operate and to fulfill His mission of cleansing and deifyingus.

Unfortunately, for me the upward reaching of the spiral is rather gradual--horizontal, in fact, much of the time--but it is, nevertheless, evident (if you look closely, that is .)

ephraim
 
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