That Christian Next Door

As Christians, navigating our slice of earth, many of us will have wondered: why are there not more like me?

Well, before going into any of that, if it is any comfort, we should know that it is not God’s design that his children are a minority.

However, the course of human history – encapsulated by Romans 3 v 23, which famously says: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” – suggests it is a steep climb to a majority.

The verse also suggests that the great challenge of life for all of us is to dislocate from being hell-bound to Heaven-bound. Or said in a different way: at base camp, from the starting blocks, there are more heading to hell than to Heaven.

Deuteronomy 7 v 6 – 8 was a message to historical Israel:

“For you are a people holy to the LORD your God. The LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for His prized possession out of all peoples on the face of the earth. The LORD did not set His affection on you and choose you because you were more numerous than the other peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples. But because the LORD loved you and kept the oath He swore to your fathers, He brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.”

John 3 v 16 ESV heralded a similar message but opened it up to a wider audience: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”

Merging these two scriptures together, the take-home message is that God’s love flowed out and continues to outflow into a choice to have not only people from Israel as His own but also people from the rest of the world.

God, having made His choice (a first move of potentially many more), has presented every one of us at the age of accountability and beyond it with two options as a form of response: to believe in Jesus Christ or to not.

To repeat that again, the options from God are: to believe – or to not – that all of us have sinned and that the price of sin is death, but also that the free gift of God through Jesus Christ is life and more life if we would repent and accept Jesus Christ as Savior.

Romans 3 vs 23 suggests that one hundred percent of people on Earth have a call from God on their lives to shift towards holiness (as the response to Jesus Christ). The implication is that we are all short of His intention and we all need to make that shift.

So, on one hand, there is what needs to be done. And on the other hand, there is what will be done. The thing that decides for minorities or majorities is obedience.

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It is not God’s design or desire that those He has chosen (by His love) are a minority – it is not a given that they are either – but the two passages referenced above in Deuteronomy and John point to this as an inevitability.

In Deuteronomy, Israel is described as the fewest of all peoples. Well, one hundred percent of the fewest people is still few; as is a fraction of the same. In John, the message of love to the wider world distils to a plea for individual belief.

Even the infinite power of God’s love does not turn minorities into majorities. Ultimately, only our individual choices can. So maybe a mindset change is required. God’s love is not a guarantee of being in the earthly majority. God’s love is a guarantee of his salvation.

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We all make changes in our lives. We may change how we see the world. Based on a life experience, we may change how we interact with the world. However, the real power of change is in the value we assign to the change itself – what it means to us. Some people make changes and it ends up having being superficial, flash-in-the-pan and ultimately undercooked. In the hands of a different person, the same changes may burn slow at first but eventually become something long-lasting.

How many of us actually make life-altering changes though? How many leave the base camp of sin for the rarified air of God’s holiness? Life in Jesus Christ is a life-altering change. How many choose life in Jesus Christ and assign it its true value?

2 Peter 3 v 9 puts it like this: that it is not God’s wish “that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.”

And a day will come when as in Habakkuk 2 v 14 “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea”, but this does not mean it is a given that the minority will become a majority because knowledge does not always convert easily to wisdom. Although, I certainly hope for a majority.

Would I be wrong in guessing that more have died living independent of God than dependent on Him? Or that more human beings have gone to hell than have gone to Heaven? I lean towards that being true but I cannot speak with any certainty beyond just my intuition.

I do not say any of this to suggest that ‘it is what it is’. I do not regard this as an acceptable status quo and I don’t think I am being blasé about it. I certainly do not intend to be. I do, however, say it to speak to the blessedness and preciousness of living in Jesus Christ (and remaining in Him, against all the odds and the attempts of the devil, even if it may be uncommon!)

It is a special thing to be near to God. Psalm 65 v 4 says: “Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple!”

We are satisfied with the demands of Big-God living. We are satisfied with His goodness and what that looks like. We are satisfied with His holiness and what that demands! We are satisfied to do what He tells us to do, trusting Him wholeheartedly.

What does God’s goodness look like to you?

To me, it looks like a response called obedience.