Would You be Convicted for Being a Christian?
Can there be sufficient hard evidence to convict you of being a Christian?
So far, we have seen that being a Christian goes beyond just being born again and full of the Holy Spirit. It is more about living as Christ lived. Being a Christian, additionally, involves our willingness to suffer for Christ without grumbling, murmuring, or complaining but rejoicing and praying for our persecutors (Matthew 5:10-12).
What conviction for being a Christian is not
Let us note the following:
If you are sanctioned for praying during office hours, it is neither persecution nor does it qualify as punishment for being a Christian. Rather, you are being disciplined or punished for acting irresponsibly and contrary to the workplace policy you subscribed to when you accepted the offer letter to work in that office.
Some people lead prayers in the office. Where this is an allowed practice, it is not a problem. The issue is what happens after the prayers. Some of these office prayer leaders afterwards engage in untoward acts like demanding a bribe before doing the job they were employed for. Such a person does not have a Christian testimony, and no one—not even Satan—would bother to take such a person to trial for being a Christian. However, such a person can be pointed to and used as a poster child for Christian hypocrisy. God says,
Indeed you are called a Jew, and rest on the law, and make your boast in God, and know His will, and approve the things that are excellent, being instructed out of the law, and are confident that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of babes, having the form of knowledge and truth in the law. You, therefore, who teach another, do you not teach yourself? You who preach that a man should not steal, do you steal? You who say, "Do not commit adultery," do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who make your boast in the law, do you dishonor God through breaking the law? For "the name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you," as it is written. (Romans 2:17-24, NKJV)
Acting pious on Sundays in a church meeting either as a church leader or congregant but living like twice the child of the devil does not make you a Christian; it makes you a hypocrite and candidate for hell!
If you are unwilling to forgive a wrong but seek to avenge the wrong done to you, you are living contrary to Christ’s teaching. The Lord warned at the end of telling the parable of the unforgiving servant (Matthew 18:22-35):
"So My heavenly Father also will do to you if each of you, from his heart, does not forgive his brother his trespasses." (Matthew 18:35, NKJV)
Singing in the church Choir, being an usher, preaching at the street corner, etc., but living contrary to Christ brings shame to the name of God and makes you unviable for persecution or prosecution for being a Christian. A seasoned persecutor of Christians would consider it a waste of time to try to do so. A persecutor of Christians may, however, give you the beating of your life for trying to mimic a Christian and wasting his time in the process!
Will your claim of being a Christian hold up in a court of law?
The Lord warned Christians that they would be hated and persecuted because they were His (John 15:19-21). Similarly, the Holy Spirit, through John, tells us that the world will not want to hear from us. Indeed, He says
He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error. (1 John 4:6, NKJV)
And because the world cannot endure sound doctrine, they would seek to eliminate the Christian! And herein lies God’s admonition to the Christian to endure hardship and suffering (2 Timothy 2:3). Thus, anyone unwilling and unable to suffer for Christ, though a Christian, would deny Christ—as Peter did (Matthew 26:69–75).
Once, when great multitudes followed Jesus, He turned and said to them:
"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple. And whoever does not bear his cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple." (Luke 14:26–27, NKJV)
You cannot be convicted as a Christian when you are unwilling to give up everything for Jesus! You cannot be convicted as a Christian when you are not convinced that Jesus is who He says He is and, therefore, worthy of suffering and dying for. If you are convinced of Jesus' Messiahship and Divinity, you will be willing to die for His sake, not just by words, but in deed! (Matthew 26:31-35, 57-58, 69-75)
Your Christianity will always be tested, but how would you hold up when it is tested? No prosecutor worth their salt would take a person to trial for being a Christian only because they are regular church attendees or because they go about with the Bible in their hands or bags. They would not take you to trial for being a Christian because you are working miracles or a well-dressed preacher. The Lord Jesus said,
"Not everyone who says to Me, 'Lord, Lord,' shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, 'Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?' And then I will declare to them, 'I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!' (Matthew 7:21-23, NKJV)
A persecutor of Christians whom Satan is prodding would only take you to trial for being a Christian when there is sufficient evidence that you refuse to compromise your stand for God. Saul of Tarsus persecuted Christians because they unapologetically taught that Jesus, whom the Jewish leaders crucified, is Lord. The real essence of persecution is to dissuade those who are doing the will of God from doing so. If you are not doing the will of God, even if you are a Christian, no one will persecute you except to ascertain that you are indeed unwilling to suffer for Christ.
Satan will try to get you to bow to him for fame, wealth, and power. If you are unmoved by such things, he will come after you with all he has to get you to bow, no matter how slightly. To be unaffected by fame, wealth, and power, you must die to the flesh, its desires and passions, the allure of the world, and be sanctified and continually so daily.
Satan and his cohorts will persecute you because you are a Christian indeed. To overcome, you must be so impervious to temptation that when it comes, no matter how subtle, you will not be drawn away to sin (James 1:12-15). We can overcome temptation when our sin-loving nature (the flesh) has been crucified, and we seek to please God only, not men!
Peter, James (the brother of John), John the Elder (the brother of James), and Paul, among many other early Christians, were easily convicted for being Christians because they refused to accept anyone else as Lord except Jesus Christ. They declined to preach that circumcision was necessary for salvation. They refused to please the badly compromised religious establishment of their day by not preaching a popular and diluted gospel. Rather, they confronted sinners with their sinfulness and challenged them to repent. Their focus was not wealth, fame, or power; it was doing the Father's will!
The Holy Spirit, through Peter, admonishes us:
Therefore submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake, whether to the king as supreme, or to governors, as to those who are sent by him for the punishment of evildoers and for the praise of those who do good. For this is the will of God, that by doing good you may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men—as free, yet not using liberty as a cloak for vice, but as bondservants of God. Honor all people. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king. Servants, be submissive to your masters with all fear, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the harsh. For this is commendable, if because of conscience toward God one endures grief, suffering wrongfully. For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God. For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: "Who committed no sin, Nor was deceit found in His mouth"; who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; (1 Peter 2:13–23, NKJV)
During the COVID lockdown, certain people who claimed to be Christians violated those government orders, conveniently refusing to acknowledge that civil authority must be obeyed (Romans 13:1-7). And, by the way, if God asks us not to obey a specific government order, we must be prepared to suffer the consequence of our refusal to follow the government's instructions! And if God gave you the instruction, He would vindicate you.
Unfortunately, many merely used wanting to attend church as an excuse to defy the government's order, and some, sadly, died from COVID infection in the process! Christians must understand that God can use government orders to achieve His purpose, so unless He specifically tells you not to obey, you are duty-bound to obey! It was because Joseph obeyed Augustus Caesar's order for everyone to return to their nativity that Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judah according to prophecy (Micah 5:2; Luke 2:1-7).
In those COVID lockdown days, many people who cared nothing about church attendance suddenly began to crave attending church meetings. These were people whom you would ordinarily have had to beg to be in church. But once the COVID lockdowns were lifted, their desire for church attendance suddenly evaporated. In reality, they only wanted to live for themselves, and church attendance was a convenient excuse. Today, many who craved church attendance during COVID lockdowns are not attending church meetings! These kinds of people cannot be convicted of being Christians. They are, at best, law-breakers and lawless people! We cannot live for ourselves, even in the name of religion, and say that we are Christians! The Holy Spirit, through Paul, tells us that Jesus
died for all, that those who live should live no longer for themselves, but for Him who died for them and rose again. (2 Corinthians 5:15, NKJV)
A Christian would submit to civil authority and his employer, respect all human beings, love the brethren, be willing to suffer, and actually suffer for Christ's sake without murmuring, complaining, and reviling. We must understand that our calling to Christ is not to show off but also to suffer for Christ. No wonder the Holy Spirit speaks through Paul thus:
Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: "For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter." Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8: 35–39, NKJV)
You and I will only be convicted for being Christians when nothing—good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, palace or prison, heavenly or earthly—can separate us from God's love which is in Christ Jesus. Moses exemplified this when he
refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin, esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt; for he looked to the reward. (Hebrews 11:24-26, NKJV)
Can God trust you to live on little without you wanting to try and get people to give you things through manipulation, eliciting and taking bribes, or even taking a bank loan "to help in doing God's work," like they say, without God's express permission? Can you be trusted to teach God's undiluted word, even if it means having a smaller gathering of people? Will you not be tempted to introduce the words of men's wisdom to build a large following? Are you prepared to face death for living as God wants you to? Like Jesus, can you be reviled and spat on and not revile or threaten in return? Can you be trusted not to seek vengeance but leave things to God, even when God seems to do nothing about the matter?
You and I must be prepared to give up everything for Christ! Without a willingness to suffer for Christ by giving up all, the three major anchors of Christianity—purity, humility, and charity or love for all men, regardless of whether they deserve it—will be transient, if not non-existent, in our lives. And the proof of our Christianity, when tested against these three major anchors, will be lacking in evidence before any competent court of law!
I pray that you will be so fully persuaded about Jesus Christ that you will be willing to suffer and die for Him regardless of the condition you find yourself in!
Shalom.