Six Things It Means to be a Christians, Part 2


Six Things It Means to be a Christians, Part 2

In 2001 I wrote a piece called, “Six Things It Means to be a Christian.” Last week I published the first four with supporting scriptures. Here are the last two:

5. To be a Christian means that I know God through Jesus.   I come to God  through Jesus. I have peace with God and all people through Jesus. God’s  love is revealed in Jesus,  and in Jesus this  Love lives in me and overflows from me to those around me.

 John 14: 6 “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.‘”

Romans 5:1 “Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Ephesians 2:14-16: “For he himself is our peace, who has made the two one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by abolishing in his flesh the law with its commandments and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new man out of the two, thus making peace, and in this one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility.” (This passage is talking about the hostilities and divisions among nations, here Jews and Gentiles, that are healed in Christ)

John7:38 “Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." 1 John 3:14 : “We know that we have passed from death to life, because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.”

6. To be a Christian means that I want the Holy Spirit to fill me up, to make me more and more like Jesus , to connect me with other Christians in  the Body of Christ, and to give me gifts which build up the Body of Christ. Through the Holy Spirit God also gives me the power to witness to non-believers about Jesus.

Ephesians 5:18 “Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.”

 II Corinthians 3:17-18: “Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we, who with unveiled faces all reflect  the Lord's glory, are being transformed into his likeness with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.
Romans 12:5: “so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others.

1 Corinthians 12:27 “Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.”

I Corinthians 12: 4-7: “There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.”

Acts 1: 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth."

Rev. Winfield Casey Jones is retired and can be reached at wrjones2002@gmail.com. This first appeared in the Pearland and Friendswood Reporter News. 


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