Growing up in a Christian home, I have always embraced my faith as true. Sure, there are some days when believing in an incarnate, yet invisible God isn’t the easiest thing to do, but that doesn’t mean I ever lose my faith. The same cannot be said for every Christian who faces hard times. Living as a Christ follower in today’s world is not the same as it was even 20-30 years ago when our parents were in school. Christians live under such scrutiny nowadays that it’s hard for people outside our faith to really know what it’s like to truly believe and follow the one true God. So what does it mean to be a Christian? To really understand what it means, you first have to look at what it’s not. Here are some of the major misconceptions about Christians and their faith.
1. Christianity solves all your problems.
Following Jesus does not miraculously erase all the problems you have in life. A relationship with Christ is not about how much you can get out of it, but rather how much you can do in return for Christ dying for your sins. As a Christ follower, embrace your problems and struggles and hardships. Most of the time, if you’re living your faith out right, you will have more problems than you will have time to solve. However, our hope and joy is found in the one who paid the ultimate price out of love for you.
2. Christians can’t have any fun.
To most people, Christians can seem to have their lives together and follow a rigid way of life that sucks all the fun out of everything we do. That, however, is a bald-faced lie from the devil himself. The rules we follow are loving guidelines given to us by our Heavenly Father, who cares too much about us to let us go our own ways towards self-destruction. Our definition of fun may not be the same as the world’s definition, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know how to have a good time. Just because we filter what we let into our bodies and minds doesn’t mean we filter out fun altogether.
3. Christianity is just a list of things to do.
Most people, some Christians included, don’t understand that your faith is not a checklist of things to do in order to get to Heaven. Christianity isn’t a religion with things you have to do in order to keep your faith, rather it is a personal relationship with a personal God, who loves you and cares about you. You don’t have to do good works to get to Heaven nor be a good person to have God love you. All you have to do is come to Him with your weakness and brokenness and lay it at the foot of His cross and say, “Here I am, Lord, take my filth and make me clean.” That is the only thing that will get you to heaven, not good works you check off a list.
4. Once saved by grace, it doesn’t matter what we do after that.
On the other end of the spectrum, there are those who believe that once you’re saved, you can go back to living your life the way you did before salvation. That is not how it works. If you truly repent of your sins and confess your belief in Christ as Lord of your life, you shouldn’t want to go back to your sinful ways of life. A true believer feels the conviction of the Holy Spirit in their life, repents, and turns away from the sins that pull them further away from their Savior.
5. Christians are not supposed to judge.
This is one of many, many instances wherein the Bible is taken out of context in order to condemn Christians for their way of life. When Jesus says in Matthew 7:1, “Do not judge, so that you won’t be judged.” He isn’t saying don’t judge people. We see this later on in the chapter, in verse 5, because He then goes on to say, “Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.” So Jesus isn’t saying don’t judge others, rather He is saying don’t judge others hypocritically. We are to judge by determining what is good and true and what is false and evil. We are to judge our brothers and sisters out of love for them, not out of condemnation.
6. Everyone believes the same thing.
This is an area that even I have a hard time understanding. Beyond the acknowledgement that Jesus is our divine Savior, Christians don’t always see eye-to-eye on everything else. Some believe in an old earth, while others believe in a young earth. Some practice certain customs, while others don’t. Christians are constantly in debate over doctrine, baptism, worship, communion, etc. While the church is not meant to be divided, it is hard to come to one common consensus when our faith is composed of numerous ethnicities, cultures, traditions, practices, etc. The differences are what make Christianity so different from all other religions of the world.
