You Might Be a Christian If...

Hopefully, you all had a little fun with the last post. You probably got to make fun of yourself a few times with comments like, "I SO do that!" Maybe you even added a few of your own. (If you did, be sure and comment so we can all enjoy!)

It never ceases to amaze me how different...but how alike runners are. If you need me to prove it to you, just stand at the finish line of a local race. The diversity of runners is amazing. We come in all different shapes and sizes, prefer specific paces and distances, insist on one brand of shoe over all others, hate running indoors or embrace gym memberships for your favorite treadmill...

No matter how different we are, we still have that one common bond as runners. You know that each person you're running with in a race finds time in their crazy schedule to train, whether early in the morning before class, or at night after the kids are in bed. They understand the amazing feeling of accomplishment in crossing a marathon finish line. They can empathize with an injury that forces you to resort to pool running for a month. They don't even expect you to have all of your toenails. Regardless of our personal preferences, we're all runners.

Being a Christian is the same way. We are so different - with differing backgrounds, from numerous countries, converted at different ages, each with unique spiritual gifts and callings on our lives. Just like runners though, we have that eternal bond as brothers and sisters in Christ.

In his first letter to Corinth, Paul points out this very point.

"For as the body is one and has many parts, and all the parts of that body, though many, are one body—so also is Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit. So the body is not one part but many. If the foot should say, "Because I'm not a hand, I don't belong to the body," in spite of this it still belongs to the body. And if the ear should say, "Because I'm not an eye, I don't belong to the body," in spite of this it still belongs to the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But now God has placed the parts, each one of them, in the body just as He wanted. And if they were all the same part, where would the body be? 20 Now there are many parts, yet one body.
So the eye cannot say to the hand, "I don't need you!" nor again the head to the feet, "I don't need you!" On the contrary, all the more, those parts of the body that seem to be weaker are necessary. And those parts of the body that we think to be less honorable, we clothe these with greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have a better presentation. But our presentable parts have no need [of clothing]. Instead, God has put the body together, giving greater honor to the less honorable, so that there would be no division in the body, but that the members would have the same concern for each other. So if one member suffers, all the members suffer with it; if one member is honored, all the members rejoice with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and individual members of it." (I Corinthians 12:12-27)

There is not a spiritual gift, race, or worship style prefered by God. He views them all as equally important, and they are all needed for a spiritually alive and growing New Testament church.

So don't think that because you don't have a full-time job at a church that God hasn't called you to do His work. Just as running a 5K makes you just as much of a runner as an ultra-marathoner, stacking chairs after the worship service makes you just as much of a servant of Christ as the preacher. In the same way, if you are the one teaching the Bible study, don't think you are more important than the one who greeted participants at the door. (That's just as fake as sneering at someone with a Half Marathon Race Bib in the bathroom before the race's start. You know by mile 18, you're wishing you could switch with them!)

So embrace your spiritual gifts. Ask God to reveal to You how He wants to use you to do His work. Ask for forgiveness if you haven't been using the gifts He has given you, or if you have regarded yourself as more important than others in the church. Then, pray for opportunities to glorify God with the talents and abilities He has given you.

An additional challenge: Ask yourself if you are as easily identified as one of Gof's children as you are as a runner. If you made a list of "You Might Be a Christian If..." including things like love your enemies, turnd the other cheek when wronged, gives cheerfully, loves your neighbor as yourself...how would you measure up? Seek to be more blatant with your Christianity as you are in your love for running.