Being Christian without being Christlike.

People have found ways of being Christian without being Christlike.

This is a sentence which recently caught my attention while reading Dallas Willards 'Renovation of the Heart'. In the lead up to this, Willard is referring to the church and how people are always teaching by example that it is more important to be right than it is to be Christlike. He writes, how there are so many different Denominations around the world and they are all 'Right'!! People in the church who are in positions of leadership particularly and who may be wrong in relation to something, need to be told what is right. They deserve to be dealt with severely. People who are going to be in heaven must be right on what is basic. This is of course true, however it can turn out that to be right in 'what is basic' is to be right in terms of that particular church tradition and not in terms of Christlikeness.

The problem is that for a lot of churches the 'basic goal' seems to be getting as many people ready to die and to go to heaven. The focus and aim should be on getting heaven into people. Very often we hear elderly people close to death say they have lived a full life and they're ready to die. However, how many people can say that they are ready to live??

Trying to always adopt this way of being right by the church, may not always be helpful in relationships within the church. In our attempts to do what we believe is right by God, in dealing with church problems, may be just building a wall between members of the body. We need to be a spirit filled people and people need to be able to see clearly that Christ is living within us. There needs to be evidence of a real transformation within the lives of the people of God.