How do you know you are a Christian?

What's the basis for your claim of being a Christian? Is it because you attend a Christian church? Is it because you were baptized a Christian? Is it your participation in the Christian sacrament of communion? Is it because your parents were Christian or maybe because you accepted Christ into your life at some point? Do you treat other people the way Christ taught us? Do you minister to the poor and the oppressed? Do you study the Bible and pray? What do you pray for?

There are dozens of these kinds of questions and, while many people have ready answers for many of them, we may expose ourselves as people who believe in Jesus but don't do the work of the ministry of Jesus. Or, despite accepting the doctrine of justification by grace, we still work to prove that we are worthy of grace when God knows we're really not.

So, are you a Christian? How do you know?

This Saturday morning we'll have Prayer Breakfast and on Sunday we will collect Noisy Offering.

The lectionary readings for this Sunday are:

·      Psalm 138

·      Isaiah 51:1-6

·      Matthew 16:13-20

·      Romans 12:1-8

Allen