True Believer/True Christian?

When I wrote the post about Coach Bancroft’s chapel message last week, I couldn’t help but recall something that I did in high school that is a mix of funny and sad.  I too had an experience where I went from being a ‘believer’ (I believed in God and Jesus, but it didn’t affect me very much) to becoming, as Coach Bancroft, LW womens soccer coach, put it, a “True Believer” where suddenly my life found its meaning entirely in my relationship with Jesus. 

An interesting thing happened when somehow or another some friends and I got some kind of artsy paint that you could put onto a blank T-shirt.  About a year before this I would have excitedly painted "AC/DC" on a T-shirt.  However, now emblazed on the front alongside a cross, I painted the words: “True Christian.”  Now there was a good side to this as I recognized that previously I would have called myself a Christian, but it had so little real value to me.  Now, it was everything.  Yet, the twist was that as I rejoiced in my newfound faith, I also happily derided other people of faith.

I was quite convinced that scores of people who called themselves Christians were, according to me, not “True Christians” at all.  These people included Catholics, “liberal” Christians, most of the people who went to my church, and pretty much everybody else that didn’t talk exactly like me about their faith experience.  I was pretty much a spiritual snob.

My True Believer transformation was real, but I had to recognize that it was part of God’s journey for me.  Other people’s journeys are different.  So, should we just leave people alone?  No, I think it’s our privilege to help people along on their journey, but we must do so gently, and with a respect for where they’re coming from, where they’ve been, and the different ways God has touched them.  We might even have to help them past some wrong beliefs, just like I needed a friend who helped me see, by the way he spoke and lived his faith, that what I was experiencing was less than what it could truly mean to be a Christ-follower. 

Again, the answer: love.  Jesus said He was giving a new commandment: “Love one another.”  When we love the people around us (listening, being a good friend/sibling/son/daughter, smiling, encouraging, praying, supporting, laughing with) we build trust and allow people to feel safe with us.  As that grows, the Spirit may allow us to have a voice in that life, a voice that can, through sincere love, help someone to take one more step on their journey with the Creator who loves them so much.