The Great Responsibility of Living an Honest Faith Before God

I long for an honest Christianity.

I probably do not know what I long for. Were I to receive it, or even observe it, it would probably frighten me out of my wits.

When God called Abraham and he followed Him by faith, God commanded Abraham and all of his household to be circumcised as a sign of their covenant.

It was a sign that their strength was not in their own might but in God. It set them apart from the people around them.

In Romans 2, Paul teaches that what God desires of us is circumcision of the heart. John Wesley calls this “a right state of soul, a mind and spirit renewed after the image of Him that created it.” To me, this means that even though God is not requiring us to physically cut part of ourselves off, He is actually requiring us to cut off something deeper and more personal than…you know what. He calls us to answer by faith, as Abraham did; to set ourselves apart for Him; and to constantly live under the reminder that our strength is not in ourselves but in Him and that our duty is not to our passions but to His commands.

And I don’t know about you, but I think this is a lot harder to live by than a quick slash of a knife.

Do you ever wonder what actually sets us apart from anyone else?

I look around and see a lot of people disillusioned with Christianity, and in some ways I, too, fit into that category (seminary student though I may be). I see gross hypocrisy and selfishness. I see people who turn the Gospel into a manipulation game by which they try to control God…and then fall apart when it doesn’t work. I see people who can lead rousing prayers and, in the next breath, exercise great harm toward others.

It makes me wonder what it would be like to see a faith “without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless” (Eph. 5:7). It makes me wonder what it would be like if people could let go of their dogma long enough to be honest and real, before God and before others.

And most of all, it makes me wonder what my life would be if I were to really live what I believe: to live as one with a circumcised heart. One “observes to do” all that God has commanded. One who forgives and doesn't just "do good" to her enemies but honestly, genuinely loves them; one who gives freely and without complaint; one who relinquishes her life because the fact that it is not her own is a reality to her. Because I don’t just do these things. I don’t usually even want to do these things…not really.

But if my Christianity is anything less than this, what part of Jesus do I claim to follow?