How do you “be” a Christian? What makes a person a Christian? Is it a personal decision or a personal experience? Are there different types? Many people have asked these questions.

Think of what it means to be a witness in a court room. You are called to the stand to give your account of what is being scrutinized and judged. You are allowed to speak because you were present first hand at the occasion that is on trial. You give your personal rendition of what happened: what you saw, how you felt, what you did, and what others did. You have sworn to tell the truth – all and only. After you have your say, you step down from the stand and are seated in silence. Now that your testimony has been given, it’s up to the jury and judge to make a decision based on what they have heard and observed. Your words may be argued against by the next person on the stand. They may refute and oppose everything you said. But they, too, have sworn to tell the truth.

After all parties have had their say, it’s decision time. The powers present in the judge and jury will determine the outcome of the case. They have power to sentence someone to a prison term or to acquit them and release them from the charges against them. You remain seated and silent as the verdict is read and the case comes to a close. You are just a witness, but your words carry great persuasive power. Your words will influence life altering decisions for some who hear them.

Think of the idea of being a Christian again. Think of the defense Jesus used when He was being tried before Pilate, before being sentenced to death by crucifixion. For the most part, He was a silent as a lamb before the shearer. Pilate asked Him if He was aware of the power he had over His life. Still, Jesus was silent. It wasn’t until after his death, burial, resurrection and ascension back into Heaven that His witnesses came to the stand to speak of what they saw, heard and experienced while Jesus was among them.

Thousands upon thousands of people from all around the world are still speaking their testimony to a suspicious, critical, condemning, skeptical and questioning court room as Jesus sits down and lets His witnesses take the stand. Their words persuade some and provoke others. There is no denying them. They speak with authority and confidence. Their words fall upon deaf ears and into searching hearts. They speak with Earthly languages as ambassadors on a mission. They speak in heavenly languages with an utterance and power from another realm. They speak with authority which has been given to them from the One whom they represent. The entire world stands guilty before the judge of all the Earth. After His witnesses have all had their say in the great courtroom of the universe, Heaven’s judge will give a righteous decree.

“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.”  — Acts 1:8 (NIV)

This is where I struggle. At youth camp this year the minister, Bro. Soto, preached about being a thermostat or a thermometer. You see, thermostats set the temperature. But thermometers only read and react to the temperature. Do you determine your attitude, or do your circumstances and emotions? A bad attitude is like a virus which slowly creeps in, spreading as it goes. If it is left unchecked it can wipe out an entire system. A bad attitude will slowly poison a person’s life, till every area is contaminated. Their every perspective will reek of negativity and complaint. Negativity stinks.

But even Jesus had to keep His attitude in check. In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus didn’t feel like obeying the will of the Father. But disregarded His feelings and His opinion and said, “Nevertheless not my will, but thine be done.” I believe it is God’s will for us to genuinely be happy. Not merely to think happy thoughts, but to have the joy of the Lord in our life. However, our flesh does not always want to be happy. Then you must choose to count your blessings, choose to be thankful, and choose to praise God until His presence brings joy to your situation. You’ll be glad you did.

When you enter a setting such as the work place or even your home, it is easy to pick up or sense the attitude that has been set by those who are there before you. If your co-workers are discouraged or upset, it is easy to let your attitude slowly begin drifting toward theirs. Maybe at first you merely want to be compassionate and understanding, taking time to listen to their problems and frustrations. But listening to people complain, hour after hour, day after day, can begin to wear on you. It is important to decide at the moment you realize this is happening that you will be a thermostat.

You can decide your attitude; you are not bound by your emotions or your circumstance. Determine to set the atmosphere at your work, home and church. Sometimes you must be the change you want to see. If you are tired of people taking you for granted, then make sure you go out of your way to be thankful for those around you. Create the culture you in which you want to live.

“You are not who you think you are.” This is a systematic attack on a target’s sense of self (also called his identity or ego) and his core belief system. The agent denies everything that makes the target who he is: “You are not a soldier.” “You are not a man.” “You are not defending freedom.” The target is under constant attack for days, weeks or months, to the point that he becomes exhausted, confused and disoriented. In this state, his beliefs seem less solid.

(Explanation from HowStuffWorks.)

When brainwashing succeeded, the prisoner of war effectively gave up control of his identity. At that point his captors could reprogram the soldier’s belief system at will. The objective was firstly to change a hostile prisoner into a docile one and, later, a returning soldier into a foreign sleeper agent — to infect their minds with beliefs counter to those of the country they returned to.

Now tell me if any of these sound familiar: “You’re such a prude.” “It’s so ignorant to believe in a god.” “Don’t tell me what you believe! How could you be so intolerant?” Never mind that they are baseless claims (no reference to facts or definitions), these are clear assaults on the identity: “Who you are is not who you should be.”

At times standing up for your beliefs can feel like walking through an enemy camp. Some are threatened by the consistency of your faith, others by faith itself. Our culture glorifies compromise to gratify one’s self. Faith is depicted as a relic of the unenlightened past. Any solid support of truth is marked for liquidation.

People of faith will do well to mind the oft-quoted words of Eleanor Roosevelt, “no one can make you feel inferior without your permission.” We need to remember who has the authority to define our identity. Who is that? “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.” (II Corinthians 5:17) If we are followers of Christ, He is the owner of our identity and we are stewards.

Let Him define your identity, and remember that no matter what it is that surrounds you, it cannot tell you who you are.

Current conditions cause many people to revisit old questions of purpose and life after death. Everyone wants to be sure of something — something greater than this life can hold. Do you just die and nothing happens? If that’s the case, why spend time on earth at all? To gain earthly things that are of no benefit? What is my purpose in living?

Well, if you’re raising your hands, or even if you don’t want to admit having those feelings, I will be honest and tell you that I’ve had those thoughts. Sure, I have my whole life ahead of me, but I used to wonder what my purpose in life is. I wondered whether I had a better reason to live, something greater to achieve than just an education or a good job. Don’t get me wrong: I still wonder at times, but the emptiness I felt when I thought about that question doesn’t haunt me anymore. Life changed forever when I discovered my purpose in life.

I’m not some guru is talking about an explosion or an earthquake that happened and revealed my purpose. No, I’m talking about something small, something that didn’t push me and didn’t make a big show of things. It was just a gentle pulling on my heart that molded who I am today. Today I don’t have to worry about changes in the economy, wars around the world, or any other disturbance — it doesn’t scare me, because I have this great inner peace. Even more than peace, I have a sense of purpose. I realize that I was created for a reason. Every feature of was molded the way it should be. I’m not a cast-off or an accident. I was created and molded to be someone that would live their life effectively for God.

Everyone has a purpose! It doesn’t matter who you are or how you are feeling. It doesn’t matter if you have perfect relationships or if your family is falling apart. It doesn’t matter if you aren’t popular, young, or old. You were created uniquely and wonderfully by the artistic hand of God, and no one can take that away from you. We are God’s Creation, His portraits, created in His image. Once we realize that we are His Creation, that we do have a purpose, we gain this joy and peace in ourselves. No longer do we try to fit in with everyone else, but we shine to be exactly who God designed us to be.

It’s not just for me or a select few: it’s for everybody. Every baby, every toddler, every child, teen, and adult! And it’s worth getting excited about! We were designed and created to be great. We have a greater purpose to live this life. So hold your head up high, have a smile on your face, because we are all loved, we all have a purpose, and we are all made by the Creator of the Universe! “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well.” (Psalm 139:14)

Last week we talked about small, low-effort portions of life that make a big difference. We called these small changes “shoelaces”. One example is taking the time to compliment or encourage someone. Now there’s a new question to address, however: how can we keep doing this? Shoelaces are low-effort, sure, but they still require effort. No matter how good it makes you feel to brighten another person’s day, it’s easy to get worn out. At some point, making that decision again seems like too much effort.

This is the hallmark of a lifestyle choice: it’s a choice that’s made over and over, even when it’s inconvenient. Lifestyles are defined not by the great big choices of life — the ones that are made by logic — but by the small everyday choices. These are the shoelaces that tie our lives together. For proof, we need look no further than Steven Levitt’s book Freakonomics. The author, an economist, devotes the fifth chapter to the analysis of parenting, posing the question “what makes a perfect parent?”

Surprisingly, Levitt found no connection between traditional parenting advice and the success of a family’s children (as measured by scores on standardized tests). Instead, factors such as parental education, eating habits, and PTA involvement were the determining influence. The author’s conclusion is that, when it comes to parenting, who you are matters more than what you do.

Why is it that character influences more than action? It’s a question of lifestyle choices. Big decisions, logical decisions, those are easy to replicate. But it’s the millions of tiny lifestyle decisions that change the course of a family, workplace, or town. Decisions like kindness, humility, generosity, and personal involvement shape the environment as well as the person. Those kinds of decisions cannot be duplicated by observation, for they are not logical conclusions, but organic results.

Lifestyles are determined at an early age. The broad decisions about what kind of person you will be are made as early as the middle school or early high school years. In a very real sense, all those millions of tiny decisions were made years beforehand. They were determined before we were aware of the repercussions. A lifestyle can be changed, but only rarely can it be planned. Who you become is more important than what you do, or try to do.

Returning to the original question, how can we continue to do this? Where can we find the power to change our lifestyle for the better? As a previous author has noted, Muhammad Ali understood the process of determining a lifestyle when he stated, “the fight is won or lost far away from witnesses — behind the lines, in the gym, and out there on the road, long before I dance under those lights.” We need a source of power that affects us before the decision arrives. Matthew 6:6 states this very fact: “But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.”

We see from the evidence that it is impossible to consciously effect enough change in ourselves to be consistent in making these “shoelace” choices. We cannot perfect ourselves through force of will; instead, we must let God change us and help us become the kind of person that is loving and kind by nature. He is our source of power, the author and finisher of our faith.

Who is God? How is his identity defined? Perhaps we should look at the first name — the only name — He gives Himself: “And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM” (Exodus 3:14). God called Himself the I Am. The Hebrew word hayah, meaning “to be,” is used here. Later writers derived the name YHWH from this word. The name is probably pronounced “Yahweh,” though most translations show it as “Jehovah,” the translator’s best guess at pronunciation. The name “Jehovah” literally means the God who Is.

But what does it mean for God to be the I Am? Again, we can turn to Him for explanation in John 8:58:  “Jesus said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Before Abraham was, I am.” The most important thing to know about God is this: that He exists. After all, if that were not the case, why should we believe in Him?

This concept is repeated many times throughout scripture. Visions of heaven speak of a God who is and was and is to come. Past, future, and present meet at the singular being who controls all three. He simply is; there are no dependencies in the identity of the I Am.

Wonderful Counselor

“For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor…” –Isaiah 9:6

Some names do not establish identity: rather, they describe the character of what is named. We see this with Richard the Lion-Hearted and Cosmas Indicopleustes, the India-Sailor. It’s not enough to know who someone is; we also want to know what they’re like. Many names of God are descriptive. They let us know what His character and actions are like.

Here and in Isaiah 28:29, the prophet tells us that Jesus — the son given to Israel — is “wonderful in counsel.” James writes that God gives wisdom to all men liberally, and Proverbs tells us that wisdom is more valuable than gold. What a privilege it is, then, for us to have the Wonderful Counselor to turn to!