Knowing What you Believe, and Living What you Believe

What does it mean to be a Christian?  Does this belief not focus on living the life that Christ lived on earth?  Christ is the beginning of this mission of Christianity.  Without Christ's life, death, and resurrection then there would be no such thing as Christianity.  Even if you may consider Christianity a "religion" and not a practice, I believe that Christianity is stereotyped this way because Christianity has given up.

Christianity's main ideas are focused on the life of the church. The church is a community that comes together under a set belief system.  People come together under one building to worship God, and to live the life of Christ.  Where many people have given up on Christianity is within knowing what you believe, and living that belief.


Both knowledge and action go together.  They do in fact represent two ways of life, yet they are held together in unison.  For example, you do not become a school teacher without knowing what it is your teaching.  A person cannot make a statement such as, I know what the laws of physics are, without ever taking a class on physics!  Same goes for Christianity, we cannot profess to be Christ followers, unless we know what we believe about Christ.

What many professing "Christians" like to do is say "I believe in Jesus," but then never see that person do anything to show that.  For example, I heard a student in a class say that they believed in Jesus Christ.  Yet, they then denied any knowledge of the Scriptures!  My question is how can you even know and follow Jesus Christ without ever knowing about him?

Another excuse many people use is how academia has taken these concepts, such as Christ and the Church, and made them out of reach for the every day person to understand.  As much as I would like to disagree with this statement, you cannot help but see some truth in it.  But should this deny our search for the knowledge of God?  Does not God want to be known? 

If we answer yes, then scholars cannot help but search for at least a framework to understand this deep and divine mystery known as God.  It's amazing to see the vast theories about who this God is and to understand that our finite words cannot even reach the divine mystery of God!  Anslem, an early church father, once described this search for God as "faith seeking understanding."  This life invites us to both know who God is, and also to live out that faith.

I do not mean that everyone of us should become biblical and theological scholars.  But I am saying that our churches, from the pastor, to the Sunday school teacher, to the bible studies, have a tremendous opportunity to discover the vastness of who God is.  Let us not ignore the search for who God is, but let us search for who He is and become participators in the dynamic story of God.