What does a follower of Christ look like? Do they drink beer? Smoke? Like rock & roll? Ride Harleys? The answer obviously is “Yes”!
As Christians, we can get caught up in prejudging a persons heart by the way they look or behave. Look at the pictures here. What are your first impressions? Look closely at the tatoos. They are literaly wearing their faith on their bodies.
You see, it doesn’t matter what is on the outside as much as what is on the inside. Christ hung out with the rough-necks and despised in society. He recruited fishermen, tax collectors. He ministered to whores, beggars and theives. He spoke against the “religious” leaders of the day. He was a revolutionary. The followers of Jesus in the early church were considered subversive. A threat to society. They were persecuted.
Are you a Christ follower? We all come to Jesus with our own personal baggage. Most of us are just trying to work it all out. We are all sinners and you know what? We don’t quit sinning when we make the decision to follow Christ. By making the decision to follow Christ, we acknowledge that we are sinners and that in spite of our continuing sin, we want to follow Jesus. We accept his forgiveness and acknowledge His sacrifice on the cross as the means to our salvation. Our life does change – sometimes very slowly. We all work it out at our own pace. As we seek to serve Him more and more, our lives will change. Jesus said that we serve God when we serve others. That is really what it means to be a follower of Jesus.
“As a Christian, I feel very shut out from a lot of contemporary Christianity. My understanding in what it means to be a Christian is to, in our own subjective way, recognize Christ as being God, and recognize our shortcomings and our failings, and try and live according ot the teachings of Christ as best we can. And what I find so strange is I look at the behavior of so many Christians, and I don’t see any aspect of the teachings of Christ represented there. But [I remember] the quote about taking the log our of your own eye before you can see the speck in someone else’s eye, so I don’t want to get in the position of judging other Christians. I fully admit that a lot of my actions and a lot of things that are still in my life are inconsistent with my beliefs as a Christian. I’m very secular.”
–Moby