Are you a safe Christian?

This last week, I had a Christmas party at our house and there were 42 people there including kids.  I say this not to announce that I had a big party, but that night, I really felt like we had a family get together.  We had some laughs, we praised God and shared a meal together.  These people had spent the entire year together and many were well vested into each other.  Regardless of the background, we were a family of believers celebrating Christ's birth together.

The more I think about church, the more I believe we are supposed to be family to each other.  In the book of Acts, they regularly opened their homes to each other, they cared for each other, they shared burdens together, they suffered persecution together.

You see, I believe there is a day coming when "safe Christianity" will be no more.  You may be asking what that is.  My definition pertains to a faith that costs you nothing, requires you to risk nothing and requires you to give nothing.  I believe there are a lot of safe Christians in America and I think a time will come that many of those believers will have to make a choice.  They will either be all in or all out.

When that time comes, it will be important that you have a real church family.  It will be important that you have a family that you trust and that you can lean on when hard times come.

A safe Christian doesn't need a family.  Allowing people in their lives makes them vulnerable, so it's not safe.  Having to give money to help others out in family may put safe Christians in a place where they get taken advantage of.  Not only that, safe Christians realize that Christians are still people and sometimes, people hurt other people and they should not risk such a relationship.  They know that an engaged Christian will lose time, money, resources, emotions and will put their hearts at risk. The safe thing to do is go to a church that is big enough to sneak in, listen to the sermon and sneak out.  No need to talk to Christians because most are hypocrites anyway.

I have news for you:  If you are a human being, more than likely, you have been a hypocrite.  Christianity is not an exclusive club for hypocrites.  Unfortunately, they are everywhere. 

People in the church will hurt you at times, but you forgive them because family is important.  When they are hurting financially, you give to help them, not because it's the Christian thing to do, but because Jesus has set a love in you that you give to others to honor that love from Him.  You listen, you learn, you refine yourself during conflict, you hurt with others, you cry out to God on behalf of others and in the end, God will refine you to something that is more like Him.

You see, safe Christians miss the refining process and when hard times come, they are unequipped and unprepared for catastrophe or loss.  The engaged Christian is refined by family through faith, hope, love, remorse, sorrow and suffering.  God gets them through it all and in the end, they walk in the security of His grace and a covenant love that will never be forsaken.  The engaged Christian learns, by faith, to stand.

So find a God family to love.  It's messy, it's difficult, but it's worth it.