The other day I saw a clip of a young movie star claiming her love for Jesus. She said she never did anything without checking with Him first…that He ruled all she did.
This was followed by a different clip where she was explaining how Jesus was okay with her doing nude movie scenes with men who are not her husband and for the public to watch.
How do we reconcile this?
We live in a crazy, confusing world where everyone, apparently, loves Jesus.
But do they really?
It is easy to say we love Jesus. It is easy to profess Him, to point to the sky and praise Him, to say He is our Lord.
It is a very, very different thing to live it.
The Christianity of today seems to have a very specific definition of a “Christian”. If someone uses the name of Jesus and loves others, then they must be a Christian, right?
But is that how the Bible defines a true follower of Jesus?
It is not.
Jesus says in Luke 9:23–
And he said to them all, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me.
And in Mark 12:30–31–
And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these.
And then in John 15:14–
Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
We learn from these verses that, while loving others is important, so are a lot of other things. We don’t get to pick and choose what defines a genuine Christian. God does that for us in His Word.
It is important that we aren’t naive and think everyone who professes Christ is genuine.
This isn’t because we are negative or out on a witch hunt (although these accusations may rain down upon your head if you dare to speak up about someone).
But for those of us who love God and His Word, our motives aren’t from a heart that takes pleasure in seeing these things.
Rather, it’s from a heart that understands the hard and unpleasant truth that not all that glitters is gold. According to scripture and from our own experiences, we recognize that not all who say they are following Jesus really are.
Throughout scripture, we are told that there will be wolves in sheep’s clothing. We are told to beware and to test all things against God’s Word. We are told that there will be people who share the Gospel who are doing so for their own sinful reasons.
And, so, any serious Christian must do as the Bible commands and test all that goes on around us. And while we trust God implicitly, we should probably not be so trusting of people.
I was reading from J.C. Ryle’s “Expository Thoughts on Luke” regarding Luke 20:19-26 and came across a passage that has to do with this very thing. I will conclude today’s post by sharing some of his insight regarding this subject.
Let us mark, for one thing in this passage, the cloak of goodness under which some of our Lord’s enemies approached Him. We read that they sent spies who pretended to be righteous, in order that they might catch Him in some statement, so that they could deliver Him to the rule and the authority of the governor. We read further that they attempted to trick Him by flattering words. “Teacher, we know that You speak and teach correctly, and You are not partial to any, but teach the way of God in truth.” These words sounded well. An ignorant bystander would have said, “These are sincere inquirers after truth!” But all was hollow and unreal. It was the wolf putting on the sheep’s clothing under the vain idea of deceiving the shepherd. Their words were smoother than butter, yet there was war in their hearts (Psalm 55:21)!
The true servant of Christ must expect to meet people of this description as long as the world stands. There never will be lacking those who from selfish or sinister motives will profess with their lips to love Christ while in their hearts they deny Him. There will always be some who, by their smooth and flattering speech, will attempt to deceive the heart of the simple.
The union of burning lips and a wicked heart is far from uncommon. There are probably few congregations which do not contain some of those whom Solomon likens to earthen vessel[s] overlaid with silver dross (Proverbs 26:23).
He who would not be often deceived in this wicked world must carefully remember these things. We must exercise a wise caution as we travel through life and not play the part of the naive [man who] believes everything (Proverbs 14:15). We must not lightly put confidence in every new religious volunteer, nor hastily take it for granted that all people are good who talk like good men.
Such caution at first sight may appear narrow-minded and uncharitable. But the longer we live, the more we shall find that it is needful. We shall discover by experience that all is not gold that glitters, and all are not true Christians who make a loud profession of Christianity. The language of Christianity is precisely that part of religion which a false Christian finds it most easy to attain. The walk of a man’s daily life, and not the talk of his lips, is the only safe test of his character.
-J.C. Ryle