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What is a Christian
For in Him we live and move and have our being…
(Acts 17:28a).

A Christian or a follower of Christ is a member of

the family of God and not a supporter of a certain
religious order or a member of a certain church or
denomination. You cannot join the family of God
through church membership and then attend
church services regularly, live according to Biblical
principles and do good works. You are not a
Christian because you are born into a Christian
family even if the last ten generations of the male
members of your family were all pastors and
evangelists. You are a member of a God’s family
when you are born into His family. You become a
new addition to the family of God when you are
born of the Spirit of God. You need to be born of
God to be a family member of God.

Christianity is the only faith that accentuates

family ties with his god and emphasizes a Father-
son relationship (nothing to do with gender)
with the only true God; Jehovah (YHWH) is His
name. All other faiths, which are religion, are based
on superstitions and dead rituals. Christianity is
not a religion but a Father-son relationship,
in Christ Jesus, with the only true God. In
Christ, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is our
Father. All other faiths (religions) are varieties
of Satanism.

Why should you belong to the family of God?

Jesus Christ, the second person of the Godhead,
created all things, including you, thus you are
belonging to Him and not to yourself or to
somebody else. All things were made through Him,
and without Him nothing was made that was made
(John 1:3). Jesus is not only Creator but also
Maintainer of all things. …has in these last days
spoken to us by His Son, whom He has appointed
heir of all things, through whom also He made the
worlds [Creator]; who being the brightness of His
glory and the express image of His person, and
upholding [Maintainer] all things by the word
of His power (Hebrews 1:2-3, emphasis added). So,
all creation, visible and invisible, belongs to God
and not to another. God has created you, for His
pleasure. Thou art worthy, O Lord, to receive glory
and honor and power: for thou hast created all
things, and for thy pleasure they are and were
created (Revelation 4:11, KJV, emphasis added).
The Creator and Maintainer of all things is also the
Redeemer of His own creation. For it pleased the
Father that in Him all the fullness should dwell, and
by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him,
whether things on earth or things in heaven, having
made peace through the blood of His cross
(Colossians 1:20). So, God created you, maintaining
your life and has redeemed you from the fall and
saved you from the wrath of God. This is the
evidence that you belong to God and not to
another god or yourself because there is no
other Creator, Maintainer and Redeemer
besides Jehovah (YHWH). In Christ alone is
redemption. The moment you surrender your life to
Christ, His redemptive work is activated in your life.
If you remain outside of Christ, though He paid the
price for your redemption in full, you will remain
unredeemed and the Righteous Judge will
eventually judge you for rejecting the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is the only way toward reconciliation
with God.

What will God’s judgment be? God will

eternally abandon everyone whose name is
not written in the Lamb’s Book of Life into the
lake of fire (hell fire and brimstone). And
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anyone not found written in the Book of Life was
cast into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:15,
emphasis added). Just as the glories of heaven are
inconceivably perfection and fulfillment and of
unimaginable splendor so is hell a godforsaken
place that is filled with dissatisfaction and a place
where the lack of all needs, desires and obsessions
consumes you. Hell is an eternal place of horror,
filled with the damned that burn in the
unquenchable flames of hell where the stench of a
mixture of sulphur and burning human flesh
suffocates you in a warm sticky darkened evil
atmosphere. In hell is no love, friendships or
compassion but only bitter reproach and remorse.
In hell is a window where you can observe the
glories of heaven you could have inherited if you
would have yielded your life to Christ (Luke 13:28;
16:23). Hell is a place that was prepared for the
devil and demons and not for men. Since the
transgression of Adam, the fierce wrath of God is
for all whose names are not recorded in the Book
of Life. Once you are in hell it will be eternally
too late to change your destiny. Believe me
my words are a total understatement of the
true horrors of hell.

Why can you not redeem yourself through

your own natural worth? God created Adam in
His image and likeness. He was perfect and had the
ability to please God on his own merits. When
Adam sinned he died to God and lost the ability to
please Him through his own intrinsic worth. In
Adam, we all died to God, so you are not able to
please God on your own inherent merits. God has
never changed; man changed through sin. When
you are born of the Spirit of God you are quickened
to God in your spirit; that is the new birth (Romans
8:10). However, your body is still dead because of
sin and your soul that lives in your blood is enmity
against God, therefore you are still imperfect.

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Your redeemed spirit is alive to God and is the part
in you that hungers after God. That part in you that
still desires to trespass is your soul. Your wicked
soul that lives in your blood defiled your body
(temple). That is why your body is the unrighteous
slave of your wicked soul. This is a result of the fall.
Christ has redeemed you in full but you are not fully
restored to perfection yet. That is why you are still
sinning. So then with the mind [spirit of his mind;
not carnal mind] I myself serve the law of God, but
with the flesh the law of sin (Romans 7:25).

The good news is that at the last trumpet you will

be made alive to God in your body as the Spirit that
raised Jesus from the dead will quicken your mortal
body and your body will be clothed with immortality
and incorruption. Your soul will be clothed with
perfection as the fullness of God’s light will displace
all darkness in you. Then you will relate to God as a
perfect man through perfect love as it was in the
beginning. Faith and hope that is in part will be
swallowed up of perfect love.

Now that you know that you are not perfect, relate
to God through faith and not perfection. Faith is
not perfection but only the shadow of
perfection to come. In this present dispensation
of imperfection and lack you are not meant to be
perfect therefore you should relate to God through
faith. Christians, because of ignorance, attempt to
be perfect before God and man but are
disillusioned when things are not working out
according to their expectation. Do not lay a joke on
yourself and others which you cannot carry. As long
as you are in the dispensation of imperfection and
lack God is not looking for perfection but for faith.
…when the Son of Man comes, will He really find
faith on the earth? (Luke 18:8b). When you believe
God, you please Him and His grace is released in
your life. When you try to present to God some

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version of your fleshly perfection you insult the
grace of God. Relax, have faith in God.

What is the difference between faith and

perfection? In the dispensation of perfection
and fulfillment to come all things that you will do,
will be a flow of spontaneous unfailing and perfect
love that will spring up inside of you like a fountain
that can never dry up.

In this present dispensation of imperfection

and lack all things that you say and do, you should
relate to God in faith in hope of perfection. You
are so imperfect that even the love that you are
manifesting is in faith with hope that you will
become an eternal fountain of spontaneous love.
There is no need for hope and faith in a sphere of
perfection and fulfillment since all things are
perfect because of immeasurable fulfillment. Faith,
in relationship to perfection, is the shadow of
perfection to come but not perfection itself. Now
faith is the substance of things hoped for, the
evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1,
emphasis added). Hope is dreaming of
perfection and fulfillment and faith is walking
in the time of imperfection and lack in the
promises of God as if it is the time of
perfection and fulfillment. Enoch and Elijah
believed God, walked in future glories to come,
please God with their faith and were translated
before the time of the last trumpet. You can have
the same if you manifest the same faith as these
two prophets. Remember, these prophets were
men with weaknesses like you and me. When the
dispensation of perfection and fulfillment
come hope and faith will be swallowed up by
perfect love. So while you are awaiting the
redemption of your body, walk by faith in God in
hope of resurrection life. If you have this hope in
you, you purify yourself even as Christ is pure (1
John 3:3).
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If you are imperfect how can you please God on
your own merits; without faith? You know in part
and speak in part. How can you compare your
character and strength, with God’s who is eternal,
immortal, invisible, omnipotent, omnipresent,
omniscient and all-perfect? If you are dead to God
in your sin, how can you that are dead please the
Fountain of life? Or, how can you of yourself, who is
full of darkness, please the Source of all light. Can
you who do not stand in the truth pleases the
Beginning and End and Embodiment of all Truth; He
that put no trust in His servants and charges His
angels with error? Can a mortal be more righteous
than God? Can a man be more pure than his
Maker? (Job 4:17). Unless Christ is your justification
and righteousness you have no justification and
righteousness before God. But we are all like an
unclean thing, and all our righteousness like filthy
rags… (Isaiah 64:6). You as an unredeemed man
have not the eternal life of Christ inherently in
yourself which is crucial to be righteous before God.
Therefore, you cannot redeem yourself before God
by attempting to give him your ragged version of
righteousness. God will not accept it. Unless you
are justified in the Son and have accepted His
righteousness as your own, your sin and guilt will
remain in the sight of God. Unless the blood of the
Lamb is founded on the doorpost of your heart you
will remain guilty in the presence of God as you will
remain dead in your trespasses.

A long time ago God gave man a chance to prove

himself righteous before God. When God
established a Covenant of Works with Israel He
burdened them with the responsibility to please
Him with works through their own worth. The terms
of the Covenant of the Law were that if the
Israelites kept the covenant they would be a special
treasure to God above all people and they shall be
a kingdom of priests and a holy nation to Him and
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the Lord will bless them. If they violated the
covenant, they would be cursed (Deuteronomy 28).
The obligation was with man to keep the covenant.
Because the law is spiritual and perfect the
righteous requirement of the law could not be
fulfilled in the flesh (Romans 8:4). With the
Covenant of Works, God proved every man to
be a liar and God alone to be the Truth. This
is God’s proof to you that you cannot redeem
yourself through your own worth. Knowing that
a man is not justified by the works of the law but by
faith in Jesus Christ, even we have believed in
Christ Jesus, that we might be justified by faith in
Christ and not by works of the law; for by works
of the law no flesh shall be justified (Galatians
2:16, emphasis added).

Can I serve another god and still be

reconciled to God, not losing my soul? No. You
shall have no other gods before Me (Exodus 20:3).
There is no other god but Jehovah (YHWH); all the
others are demons. So, the scribe said to Him,
“Well said, Teacher. You have spoken the truth, for
there is one God, and there is no other but He
(Mark 12:32, emphasis added). To be born into the
family of God you have to go through Jesus and not
another, because He is the only way to the Father.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, the truth, and
the life. No one comes to the Father except
through Me (John 14:6, emphasis added). Stories
that there are many ways to God and eternal life is
a lie from hell that Satan devised to rob you of
eternal life. There is no salvation but in Jesus
because there is no other name under heaven
given to you by which you must be saved (Acts
4:12). If you reject the salvation of God, Jesus Christ
our Lord and Savior, I guarantee you that you will
spend eternity in the torments of hell. He who
believes in the Son has everlasting life; and
he who does not believe the Son shall not see

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life, but the wrath of God abides on him (John
3:36, emphasis added).

Why is the name of Jesus Christ alone

sufficient before God? There is only salvation in
Jesus Christ for it is the only name under heaven
given among men whereby man can be saved, not
Buda, Allah, or any other name (Acts 4:12). Jesus
Christ alone died for your sins and rose from the
dead that you may have life in Him; no one else. He
who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who
does not believe is condemned already, because he
has not believed in the name of the only begotten
Son of God (John 3:18). Only faith in the name of
Christ is sufficient to get you reconciled to
God and no other name.

Why are the merits of Jesus Christ alone

acceptable to God? Adam brought sin and
death into the world and spread it to all men.
Therefore, just as through one man sin entered the
world, and death through sin, and thus death
spread to all men, because all sinned (Romans
5:12). God’s holiness demanded righteous
judgment on sin. For all have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God [Christ in you] (Romans 3:23).
Imperfection is the lack of the glory of God, which is
Christ in you. Your only hope of glory is Christ
within you the hope of glory. Unless you have
the Spirit of Christ in you, you fall short of the glory
of God and you stand under His judgments. For the
remission of your sin God’s judgment demands the
shedding of blood. God counted Christ alone
worthy to be slain and to redeem you to God
by His blood. For this reason He was born and
came into the world. No one else was found
worthy to redeem you to God. Christ, the
perfect sacrifice, was offered once and for all to
bear your sins. God poured out all of His fury and
judgment on Christ to redeem you from your sin
and saved you from His judgment. Your redemption
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is all about transference. On the cross your entire
imperfect existence of past, present and future sin
was transferred to Christ. Christ’s perfect life and
eternal righteousness were transferred to you that
you could become in Him the righteousness of God
through faith. The moment you are Christ’s, the
benefit of His redemptive work is yours. The catch
is: “You must be, in Him, to be a beneficiary.”
God sent Christ to the world to redeem you
and that commission made Him worthy as
sacrifice for your sin and not another. God
needed a Lamb without blemish. Christ who is
the fullness of the Godhead bodily was
counted worthy; there was no other who
could qualify. It was also appropriate for the
Creator and Maintainer of creation to be also
its Redeemer.

Do you know that God loves you? Love always

gives. For God so loved the world that He gave His
only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him
should not perish but have everlasting life (John
3:16).

Jesus took the worst punishment and torment

imaginable on the cross that you, in Him, may have
eternal life. You may say yes but thousands upon
thousands of people died on Roman crucifixes.
What is so special about Jesus’ death?
The greatest suffering on the cross was not the
physical and emotional battering Jesus received but
being forsaken by the Father on account of your
sins caused His death. The Father divorced His
Spirit from Christ’s Spirit that God’s holiness could
be made manifested in righteous judgment. On the
cross the Father and the Holy Spirit was
crucified with Christ and suffered with Him
the torment of the unimaginable loss of
separation. When Jesus died the pain in the
Father’s heart was so immense that He thought
about you to lessen the pain in His broken heart.
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Because of your sin God cut Jesus out of His family
that you may be grafted into His family tree. Let me
explain the separation of the Holy Trinity more
clearly that you may comprehend the love of God
for you. After one willfully fall away from God it is
not possible to be renewed to repentance again
because you crucify Christ again and put Him to an
open shame (Hebrews 6:6). It is not physically
possible to bring Christ down from heaven and nail
Him afresh on a cross. But if you fall away in
apostasy He will separate His Spirit from your spirit
and you will put Him once again through the
torment of separation, thus crucifying the Son of
God afresh. To divorce His Spirit from yours will be
just as traumatic for Him as when the Father
separated His Spirit from Christ’s during His
crucifixion. Christ’s physical and emotional
suffering was unimaginable gruesome but it was
the rejection of the Father of the Son that broke the
Father’s heart and caused the death of Christ. Jesus
had to drink the cup of rejection and separation
that you may be accepted in the Beloved. The
Holy Trinity has humbled Themselves to a
point where They were for a moment in time
no Trinity; They went through the agony of
separation that caused Christ’s death, to save
you. This is how much God loves you.

Do you know that God has a wonderful plan

for your life? Salvation is all about God’s purpose
to bring forth many sons to glory. For it was fitting
for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are
all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make
the captain of their salvation perfect through
sufferings. For both He who sanctifies and those
who are being sanctified are all one, for which
reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren
(Hebrews 2:10-11). Jesus came to the world to
introduce God as Father and Himself as our oldest
brother. God’s focus is on His family, which
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finds its expression in the Father-son relationship in
Christ Jesus our Lord. God’s plan for your life is
that you may be a son (nothing to do with
gender) to Him. For whom He foreknew, He also
predestinated to be conformed to the image of His
Son, that He might be the firstborn among many
brethren (Romans 8:29).

If today were your last day on earth, do you

know for sure, beyond a shadow of a doubt
what your eternal destiny is; eternal death or
eternal life? How will you know if you belong to
Christ? Now if anyone does not have the Spirit
of Christ, he is not His (Romans 8:9b, emphasis
added). The vital proof is whether your spirit is
one with the Spirit of Christ. When you are joined
to your wife in marriage you become one flesh with
her. As it is in the natural so it is in the Spirit. But
He who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with
Him (1 Corinthians 6:17, emphasis added). Your
relationship with Christ is as holy as a marriage
relationship. For your Maker is your husband,
the Lord of hosts is His name; and your redeemer is
the Holy One of Israel; He is called the God of the
whole earth (Isaiah 54:5, emphasis added).

What is the proof that you belong to Christ?

By the mouth of two or three witnesses every word
shall be established (2 Corinthians 13:1b). The Holy
Spirit and your own spirit are the two witnesses
(sufficient to establish the truth) that bear witness
that you are Christ’s. The Spirit Himself bears
witness with our spirit that we are children of God
(Romans 8:16). This deep witness and conviction in
your spirit is the basis of your faith in God and
Jesus Christ whom He sent. This inner conviction
strengthened multitudes of Christian martyrs
through all the ages when they were tortured to
death for their testimony and unyielding faith in
Christ.

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How do you become a Christian? That if you
confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and
believe in your heart that God has raised Him
from the dead, you will be saved. For with the
heart one believes unto righteousness, and with
the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For
the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will
not be put to shame. For there is no distinction
between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all
is rich to all who call upon Him. For whoever calls
on the name on the Lord shall be saved (Romans
10:9-13, emphasis added).

If you are not a Christian or not sure if you belong

to Christ but believe that the Lord Jesus Christ died
for your sins and God raised Him from the dead
that you may have eternal life in Him, pray this
prayer out loud with me, meaning every word
that you are going to say. “Dear Lord Jesus, I
am a sinner and therefore in myself have no
access to God. I confess you as my only door
to God. Please come into my heart and make
your home in me. I believe with all my heart
that you died for my sins and that God, Your
Father, raised You from the dead that I may
have eternal life in You. I accept you both as
my Savior and Lord meaning that through the
measure of faith You have given me I will
follow You wherever you may lead; now and
forever, so help me God. I confess that I
choose live above death. Please record my
name in Your Book of Life that I may live and
not perish. I confess that I can do nothing of
myself so grant me grace to always please
You. I believe that based on the faith in my
heart and my verbal confession that now I am
born into the family of God. From now on I
will know you as my oldest Brother and God
as my Father. From this moment on I am part
of the family of God and my interests and
loyalties are forever with You. Amen.”
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John Robert Stevens in his book (This Week,
Volume III, 1972, p. 25-26) described a Christian as
follows: “To be a Christian, as I understand
Christ, means the acceptance of the absolute
authority of Jesus in all of my life. It means
that in everything that I am and do when I
eat and drink, when I buy and sell, when I
work and play, when I read and think – that I
take Jesus as my Master. It means that I
enthrone Him as King in my affections; that I
subject my friendships to His dominion; that I
conduct my business and intellectual and
social life under His inspection and direction.
It means that my ruling passion – the passion
that shall absorb all other interests, shall be
to live my whole life under the sovereignty of
Jesus. It means that I honor His name above
every other name, and place obedience to
Him above every other obligation.

To be a Christian means that I am no more

my own man, but Christ’s man. It means the
giving myself away to Him, so that I have no
more right or title to myself; so that I have no
more claim upon myself, and am no more at
my own disposal. To be a Christian means to
belong body and soul to Christ, now and
evermore, for Him to do with me as He wills.

Hence, it means that in being Christ’s man, I

am set free from all fear. My joy must be in
doing His will – in being His slave; in the
confidence that whatever comes to me when
following Him is His doing. In a real sense, I
make Him responsible for my life. I am
responsible for following; He is responsible
for leading and keeping. It can be none of my
business what happens to me, what I gain or
lose when I follow Him. That is Christ’s
business. It is His to command, and mine to
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obey. I am sure that He will not waste a
fragment of my life if I let Him possess it and
direct it. I am also sure it will be mainly
waste, friction, vain striving and misdirected
effort, sickening failure, and defeated
ambition if I try to direct my own life. My part
as a Christian is not to find out the opinions
of men, but to keep my eyes fixed on Christ:
to let my mind dwell on Him, having a
constant mental vision of His character; to
make His life the food on which my soul shall
live; to make His gospel the text book and
the authority by which I stand and fall.”

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