Guilt By Association

Guilt By Association

"Let me give you a new command: Love one another. In the same way I loved you, you love one another. This is how everyone will recognize that you are my disciples—when they see the love you have for each other."
John 13:34-35 The Message Remix

One word that I hate is the word Christian. I think my disdain for the word is that it conjures certain expectations and so few live up to its perceived moniker. From my personal experience, many self proclaiming Christians confound me by their lack of Christianity. I expect forgiveness and I am charged. I hope for respect and am marginalized. To quote a book on my reading list, “What happens when bad Christians happen to good people?” I wonder why so many call themselves Christian by their own admission, even though they are hardly ever accused of it.

This verse says that people, in some way, become recognizable as those that belong to Christ. And in my opinion, the only way that happens is to spend so much time with God that a person picks up on his ways, thought patterns and spiritual demeanor. I think we become authentic Christian accomplices when we do supernatural things like forgive the unforgivable or loan out trust to the questionable and when we esteem others higher than ourselves. We keep this command to love when we love those that are unlovable.

In my opinion, we should reclaim the moniker of Christian. I think we should live lives that are so God-connected, so God-centered, that we are blessed by others with the best compliment ever, “You must be a Christian…”