James Harmer

Christians… what an interesting and often abused word. People say “I’m a Christian” and you really have to wonder what it means. I get angry(yes, I’m sorry but angry) when I see loud-mouthed Christians go around and shout what they believe in but then act just like the world. I’m not talking about sin or struggling, I’m talking about hypocrisy. Being a Christian is not going around saying “Oh well… I’ve been forgiven so I can do what ever I want.” And it’s not about the other extreme of looking down at everyone because you no longer do what they do.

I invited some non-Christian friends to come hang out with me and some of my Christian friends once. I was thinking it would be good for them to see that we are not aliens or anything.. you know, we do regular things and have lives. We went to a few places and their conduct was just a horrible example. My two non-Christian friends were turned off and said that they would not hang out with me again if those “Christians” were there. Than they said “If they are supposed to be Christians, than I don’t see what the difference is between them and us. They’re the biggest Hippocrates we’ve ever seen… and they want us to get ’saved’?” you know, they were right.

I’m not saying that my Christian friends were not going to heaven or that God had not forgiven them, what I’m saying is that they were doing God a dis-service by claiming to represent Him. Two problems, one was proud about how much he didn’t sin, and the other openly showed that he really didn’t care about his sin and just said “God will forgive” or “is it any of your business?” when they asked him something like “Aren’t you supposed to be a Christian?” I was stuck in the middle of this and did not know what to do.

There seems to be a division sometimes between two groups of Christians… some people call them the “Grace Christians” and the “Holiness Christians.” There should not be any division, let alone one that is clearly portrayed in the Bible as two good things that both come from God for us and those we interact with. You know, those labels mis-represent what Grace and Holiness are all about. Grace is for when we mess up, for when we struggle with giving something up… or when we aren’t ready or can not give it up.. it’s for when we fall(Which is often.) It is not for when we don’t care about something and want an excuse so we can do it. Holiness is something that we should seek and really it is by Gods grace that we can live Holy lives… it’s not a product of self-effort, although it is our responsibility to seek it, it has nothing to do with how good we are, it has everything to do with how good God is.

We can’t be proud of Holiness and we cannot abuse Grace…. and if we do, we would do God a great service by not proclaiming ourselves to be Christians. People really need to see that we take sin seriously, but we aren’t perfect and that is why we need God in the first place.. yes, we can be open about the fact that we fall. If we are struggling with a sin, we need Grace. To deal with our sin, we need God’s Holiness in our lives. You can’t have one without the other. There is no such thing as “Holiness Christians” and “Grace Christians.” There are Christians. We should not try to divide ourselves into categories, we need to be an example of people who have both.

My two non-Christian friends were not offended by sinners… they were offended by Hippocrates. I am a sinner saved by Gods grace who is living a Holy life by the grace of God… who among us is not a sinner? I am not a sinner in the sense that I seek out sin and/or have not been redeemed from the power of it, but I am in the sense that I do struggle at times with sin. But because it is no longer I who live, but He who lives within me, it does not have power over me and I have overcome.

He is all about Grace… He is all about Holiness. You can’t have one without the other. They should make a song… Like the theme song to Love and Marriage. you know, “Grace and Holiness, Grace and Holiness. They go together like…” yeah I know it’s a lame idea, but it’s Ok. God has grace for my Lameness.

-James’