Imagine for a moment that you were a young college student who was really “taken” by a beautiful co-ed, and you invited her out on a date.

After some small talk, you made the following offer to her: 

“I want to marry you. But you must understand that I believe in open marriage (it’s OK to fool around).

“Furthermore, I have a lot of other priorities in my life besides you. I will go traveling for extended periods. I will form other female relationships, maybe some intimate male ones, too. 

“Finally, I’m not interested in having children and I intend to be the sole overseer of our marriage, making all critical decisions unilaterally. You will always be nice to me and keep the house impeccably clean, stocked with food, which you will be expected to cook every day.

“Our marriage will be about me and you will just have to fit in.”

How do you think your “intended” would react to your “generous” offer? Do you think you could find anyone on the planet interested in such a proposition?

Yet this is often the way we treat God. We want things on our terms, we want our “cake and eat it, too.”

We are fine with a Jesus who will sit quietly on the shelf until called upon. We want a Jesus who will play second fiddle and not interfere with anything WE want to do.

This kind of Jesus does not exist.

There is no such thing as a part-time Jesus.

The Jesus who does exist and walked this earth wasn’t one to mince words.

In Matthew 10:37-39, he said, “The one who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me; and the one who loves son or daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. And the one who does not take his cross and follow Me is not worthy of Me. The one who has found his life will lose it, and the one who has lost his life on My account will find it.”

Note, in the previous passage, the reference point is Christ, NOT ME.

I am to reference my life to Him in everything. Only then will I discover and inhabit the victorious, bountiful purpose for which I was created.

Now we are not talking about salvation here. Salvation is 100% by grace through faith in Christ and in His death, burial and resurrection, as explained in 1 Corinthians 15:1-4.

But once a person comes to saving faith and has been indwelt by the Holy Spirit, he/she WILL want to follow Christ. Such a Spirit-empowered change in a born-again believer’s life is evidence of true conversion, as noted in John 10:27-28:

“My sheep listen to My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me; and I give them eternal life, and they will never perish; and no one will snatch them out of My hand.”

And in John 14:23-24:

“If anyone loves Me, he will follow My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our dwelling with him.”

The Holy Spirit ALWAYS points the believer to Christ and empowers his/her walk of faith.

Evangelist Charles Haddon Spurgeon is quoted as saying: 

“If Christ is not all to you, He is nothing to you. He will never go into partnership as a part Savior of men. If He be something He must be everything, and if He be not everything, He is nothing to you.”

In a previous columnn, I quoted theologian R.C. Sproul: “The big idea of the Christian life is ‘coram Deo’ … This phrase literally refers to something that takes place in the presence of, or before the face of, God. To live coram Deo is to live one’s entire life in the presence of God, under the authority of God, to the glory of God … There is no place so remote that we can escape His penetrating gaze …”

Sproul continued, “To be aware of the presence of God is also to be acutely aware of His sovereignty (supremacy). The uniform experience of the saints is to recognize that if God is God, then He is indeed sovereign … To live all of life coram Deo is to live a life of integrity. It is a life of wholeness that finds its unity and coherency under the majesty of God.”

Finally, “A fragmented life is a life of disintegration. It is marked by inconsistency, disharmony, confusion, conflict, contradiction and chaos.”

How About You?

So just how much does Christ mean to you? I’m not talking about what you SAY, it is about how you LIVE your life. If you were accused of being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?