Christians.... Are We Really Christlike?

[BamaLefty]

This has always bugged me and I am pretty interested in theology and those sorts of things. We have some intelligent people on this board, and maybe they have some answers. I don't mean to sermonize or waffle on and on to you guys...

Do we have it all wrong? Do we really live a Christlike life? Do we spend more time thinking about Alabama football and getting caught up in political issues than we do focusing on living our lives through Christ? These things have started nagging at me, and I will be the first to admit that I am very imperfect, and I am guilty of all of the above. Mahatma Ghandi said, "I like your Christ. But your Christians are so unlike your Christ." Each and every day this seems more and more true. Take a moment to analyze your life, not to do any "deep" thinking, but just take the past year for example. Have you donated more money to charity (tsunami relief, soldier phone cards, donating at church) than you have spent on CDs, clothes, etc?

I don't want to be portrayed as being a "softie" with this post. And I realize that perception is everything these days. But just take a moment to step back and look at your life objectively and come to a conclusion that you are either living a Christlike life, or simply claming it. There is a big difference.

[greblc]

1. no

[BamaLefty]

2. I Agree

Feel free to add any other thoughts.

[greblc]

9. Church and Christian Fellowship is such a turn off.

The hypocrisy is unbearable. We have so many people in our society who think only of their own needs. Even at church. Not many people look for ways to help one another. I tell my children every morning to do something nice for some one and ask them to tell me about it at dinner.

We teach Children so many things that contradict Good will it's frightening.
None of us are perfect but , most of us could do more to help our neighbor.

[illflem]

3. I don't think you need to focus on living

your life though Christ to be Christlike. Religions make a simple thing like common sense into a complicated ordeal. Everyone knows in their heart the difference between right and wrong, the essence of Christ's teachings.

[Coyote_Bandit]

4. Just the other day

I was thinking about this very issue. It occurred to me that throughout my life I can count only 2 couples and one spunky old woman who I can honestly say that I respect because of the way they live their faith. That would be 5 people out of literally thousands of so-called Christians that I have known. I spent 7 years at Six Flags Over Jesus and I used to work on a church staff. What was so different about those 5 people? They genuinely and proactively cared about people in ways that required that they invest of themselves, their time and their resources. I am a believer but I do not want to be anything like 99.999% of the "Christians" I have known.

[Az]

5. I find Mark Twain's take on this to be interesting

He wrote in Letters From Earth an observation that the things that humans attribute to heaven are none of the things they pursue on earth. Now of course he was speaking to the notion of harps, eternal choir et al. But the point still remains.

The bulk of Christians I meet seem to be caught up in affairs and concerns that based on the expectations of heaven would seem out of place. When I challenge Christians to relenquish their material goods they quickly grow defensive. Do they think they are going to be concerned about such things in heaven? Then why remain concerned about them here?

This is just some curious pondering from an observer. I am interested to hear the various opinions of what the notion of living like Christ is felt to be. So I will not challenge such matters and leave my observations as I have stated them.

[Tafiti]

17. Actually, in my experience...

...they are concerned about such things in heaven. Growing up in church, I often heard things like "streets of gold" and "mansions" being built for us in heaven, and "crowns of jewels," etc. The great thing about heaven is not only will there be an absence of pain and suffering, but you'll be rich to boot!

[asjr]

6. You are not a softie! You have questions and you want answers.

I think we all do. My relationship with God is a personal one and I do not force it on others. Do unto Others as you would have them do to you. That is one of the wisest things ever written. That is my philosopy. I am Christian because I was raised that way. That phrase would be just as important if I were of another religion. It transcends religion. I am not perfect and do not pretend to be. None of us are perfect. But God loves us just the same. My God is a loving God--not the fire and brimstone God that so many Christians believe is the only one. You can't be Christ-like. No one can be. I would drive myself crazy trying to be. And drive others crazy too. God loves me just as I am, warts and all. I think He has a sense of humor too. I know he must be laughing his head off sometimes when he thinks of me. But He is there. That is all I need to know. I know this doesn't really help you, but chill a bit. I never try to be something that is beyond my human existence.

[VioletLake]

7. Christ means messiah.

One can be Jesus-like and not messiah-like. The demands are a little more reasonable. ;)

[RC]

8. Care about other people, Care about

the environment. Care about living things in general. It is more important to hold open a door for someone or to stop for a pedestrian in the crosswalk than it is to show up in church every Sunday.

A question: do you really think that a God that made the Earth and the Heavens above it, would be so petty as to condemn his whole creation except those few that by chance showed up at the one correct church, practicing the correct version of the Christian religion every Sunday? That is what Christianity teaches.

[T_i_B]

10. The great Challenge of being a Christian.

It is not easy to live the moral life. Don't get us wrong on that, but we must try, we must endeavour to be Christ like and to set that example to others. That is one of the great challenges of the Church in any era. We must try to pratice what we preach, to make our faith living faith.

http://bibleontheweb.com/Bible.asp

21 For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps.
22 He committed no sin; no guile was found on his lips.
23 When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten; but he trusted to him who judges justly.

[supernova]

11. No I'm not very Christ-like

I had to learn how to forgive myself for not being like Christ, in total. At least as it's popularly understood. I do try to follow Jesus' example in some ways but it really wouldn't be productive for me to try in other ways.

This is hard to write, and I might ramble some.

I do follow Christ in that I believe we should have acceptence (not just tolerance) for everyone. I believe in building a society where everyone is free to pursue and display their own unique talents. I believe in building a society where the poor are taken care of so no one is hungry or cold and without shelter. Especially in the winter, happiness is a blanket and a warm home. I believe the sick should be taken care of. In a society like this, no one would be denied access to the care they need. My heart breaks every time I hear of a person who cannot get good medical care because they cannot pay. It's chilling. I also believe in leaving a small footprint on the planet, and using only the resources that I need, not over-consuming food, or energy, etc, or over spending on things like Christmas.

And I am acutely aware that, given another set of circumstances, I could be the person needing that help. *I* could be homeless. *I* could be dying of illness. *I* could be wondering where my next meal was coming from. "There but for the grace of God go I..." There's nothing unique about me that deserves to live a fairly comfortable life. I'm not wealthy, by any means, but I mostly have what I need.

Here's where I fall down. I'm very much a loner. (See the DU Loners Group) I tend to want to do things at the individual level, rather that at the group level. I find being in groups to be too overwhelming.

My dilema is my church that I belong to now, is very much run on the committee method. If we do anything, it's as a group. I find that exhausting. Not the mission or the objective, just the group aspects of it. So, I'm trying to figure out what I'm supposed to do with all this empathy and sensitivity. I have a hard time figuring out an appropriate way to channel it in healthy ways that are appropriate for me and for the community.

And I deeply feel God's patient love for me while I try ti figure this out. :cry:

[Frogtutor]

18. I know where you're coming from...

I was actually diagnosed with "Social Anxiety Disorder" a few years ago, and I take Paxil now (which helps quite a bit). I fear new situations especially with new people, dislike working in groups, painfully shy, self-conscious, etc. Anyway, I've always been kind of a loner because of this.

I did give this same issue some thought a while back, though. I was thinking that I should be doing something to help others; some kind of volunteer work or something, but I don't want to deal with the social aspects that are usually involved. I thought that there are probably a lot of things that need doing that don't require much social interaction. Take a homeless shelter for example; I usually think of volunteers serving food, but there's got to be people who cook, clean, do laundry, do paperwork, repairs and maintenance etc. The same holds true for women's shelters, food banks, orphanages, and any number of places I haven't even though of. I bet if people like you and me went to a person who runs such a place and told them, "Look, I'm a very shy person, but I want to help. Is there something I can do for you that won't require a lot of social interaction on my part?" Okay, they might think we're a little weird, but I bet they would take us up on the offer!

I haven't got my butt out the door to do anything about it yet, but thinking about it is a start!

Good luck

Edited for grammar

[Selwynn]

12. Christendom has done away with Chrisitanity...

"Christendom has done away with Christianity without being quite aware of it." ~ Soren Kierkegaard

One of the reasons I am not a member of any Christian religious church or organization is because I don't think most organized Christendom today even remotely follows Jesus' teachings or example.

There are two points where I am at issue with you however. First, I don't think whether you donate more money to charity than you spend on something else is a sufficient litmus test for being truly "Christlike." We can't take someones financial records and decide that if they have 51% "generous" expenditures they are truly Christian but if they only have 49% then they miss the cutoff and are therefore not.

In fact, while speaking of truly following Jesus' example I am reminded or his exhortation not to make these kinds of judgments about others.

Second, living the "Christlike" life is all about maintaining healthy, responsibly, compassionate relationships to other people and to this world. Virtually everything Jesus taught points to that. What different individuals should do to really reflect an authentically lived Christian life will be different to some extend depending on individual and context. But the constant is the striving to have a heart filled with compassion and relationships built around that healthy framework.

In then end, all being "Christlike" means is loving the lord with all your heart soul mind and strength, and your neighbor as yourself. The specific details of how each individual best honors those two exhortations in a given context are things that must be left up to the individual to determine.

[More Than A Feeling]

13. Impossible to be truly living life like Christ

He was the model, the ideal, of human life on Earth. Since noone can be perfect except him (because then they would be God), everyone must invariably fall short. That is where forgiveness comes in, and the understanding that no matter how much we fail, God still loves us. All we can hope for is to do our best, and go to God when we feel weak. Caveat: This is not to say we should keep sinning (as Paul pointed out).

[Az]

14. Ideal?

I have no desire to cause disruption. But I am having trouble reconciling this notion of ideal and the Bible's description of outbursts of anger on his part. The money changers in the temple. An innocent Fig tree. These are just a couple examples of Jesus blowing his cool. Is ideal the proper word? I honestly don't know.

[More Than A Feeling]

15. why would the Bible mention the fig tree?

If this event were to be taken at face value, there would seem to be no reason to include it in the story. Jesus, according to the Bible, worked many miracles, most of them more impressive than this one, and most of them giving life, rather than taking it. The story of the driving of the money changers from the temple immediately follows. That to me suggests that the two are related. Further more, in the Old Testament, Israel is referred to as a fruitless fig tree. The juxtaposition of the two seems to indicate a connection. Because the tree did not bear fruit, Jesus cursed it. Because the money changers in the temple (those in positions of authority) were not bearing fruit (i.e. changing money rather than being faithful to God) he drove them out. The whole scene is one of criticism of those who put obedience to ritual over faith in God. What is less than ideal about that? Putting ritual over compassion is idolatry. Isn't that one of the primary critiques of the religious right today, that they put ritual and judgment over compassion and mercy?

[silverlib]

19. About the disruption in the temple

with the money changers. I recently attended a non-violence seminar where this example was used as a "planned protest" as Jesus had seen the money changers in the temple many, many times and he picked his time and made his plan, just as MLK planned demonstrations long before they took place and waited for the proper time.

Just a thought - I know, just like Christians, not everyone will agree.

[MemphisTiger]

16. We should try to be as Christlike, as possible

that being said, we are all sinners and only Jesus was without sin. I'll have to do some more research into the references behind my statement, but that is basically the gist of it for Christians.