<\/p>\n
\u201cYour attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ.\u201d \u2013 Philippians 2:5<\/em><\/font><\/font><\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.\u201d \u2013 1 John 2:6<\/font><\/em><\/p>\n If someone says they are a Christian, you get to judge them inside and out.<\/font><\/p>\n Inwardly, they should have the attitude of Jesus. <\/font><\/p>\n Outwardly, they should have the \u201cwalk\u201d of Jesus.<\/font><\/p>\n These are the inner and outer standards upon which all of us who call ourselves Christians measure ourselves. (Not in order to get eternal security, by the way, which is a free gift of love from God, but as the evidence that we have received this free gift\u2026for they are earth-bound results of belief in Jesus.)<\/em><\/font><\/p>\n And while the Bible makes these two things clear, it also makes it clear that there is a transformational process involved in the becoming like Jesus (Romans 12:2, for example).<\/font><\/p>\n Combine these two things, and the true standard that you can use to judge if someone is a Christian is whether or not that someone is actively involved in his or her own transformation into the image of Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n If you asked them, they would be able to tell you\u2026<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026that they are becoming more like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026that they are not finished becoming more like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026how they are becoming more like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what old attitudes and actions they had that weren\u2019t like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what current attitudes and actions they have that aren\u2019t like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what new attitudes and actions they have acquired that are like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what attitudes and actions they lack that are like Christ.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what they participated in, in order to transform into Christ likeness.<\/font><\/p>\n \u2026what they are currently participating in, in order to continue transforming into Christ likeness.<\/font><\/p>\n So, if you ask them these questions, and they can\u2019t answer (now, give \u2018em a minute, because not many ask them to articulate these things), you are free to doubt that they are Christians.<\/font><\/p>\n No matter what they say.<\/font><\/p>\n Jesus, his attitude and his ways, are the standard of judgment.<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cYour attitude should be the same as that of Jesus Christ.\u201d \u2013 Philippians 2:5 \u201cAnyone who claims to live in him must walk as Jesus did.\u201d \u2013 1 John 2:6 If someone says they are a Christian, you get to judge them inside and out. Inwardly, they should have the attitude of Jesus. Outwardly, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pO6nf-3b","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brianmashburn.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}