Marks of a Genuine Christian According to Jesus
5/21/2024
During my freshmen summer, I went on a short term mission trip with my youth group to Tecate, Mexico. On the last few day or so of our trip, I remember going to a local flea market with everybody where we picked up local souvenirs and little gifts for our friends and family back home. I wandered around with my friends going from store to store looking at what every shop had to offer. I remember coming across multiple stores that looked like they were offering name brands of clothes and jewelry at a severe discount. Upon closer inspection, what I thought was a Nike shirt turned out to be “Nlke” with an L instead of an i. An Adidas shoe was misspelled as Addas, a Louis Vuitton bag was labeled as a Lous Vuitton bag, and some gold jewelry a friend bought started rusting pretty quick - didn’t realize that gold could do that. (it doesn’t) I learned a valuable lesson that day: not everything is what it seems and there are knockoffs everywhere.
According to the Pew Research Center in 2021, nearly 63% of Americans considered themselves Christian. In a 2023 Gallup poll, 68% of Americans identified as Christian - that’s about 226 million people out of 333 million Americans. Globally, there are an estimated 2.4 billion (31%) professing Christians out of 7.8 billion people on the planet. That’s an astounding amount of professing Christians, but I question the legitimacy of these numbers.
Jesus tells us in Matthew 7:13-14 (ESV):
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.”
The gate is narrow the leads to heaven, the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. 68% of Americans professing Christ is not a small number. 2.4 billion people on the planet professing Christ is not “few.” On the flip side, the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many - logically this leads me to believe that there are many people in America today who profess Christ but do not truly follow Him nor are they truly Christian.
This leads me to ask an important question: What are the marks of a true Christian/disciple according to Jesus Himself?
A true Christian does the will of God
Matthew 7:21-23 says, “21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’”
A true Christian does not trust in himself for salvation, but wholly trusts in Jesus Christ by faith
John 6:29 “Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.”
A true Christian not only believes in Christ as Savior, but listens and obeys Jesus as Lord
Luke 6:46 “Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you?”
A true Christian denies himself, carries his cross (dies to himself), loses his life to save his life, and follows Jesus presently
Mark 8:34-35 “34 And calling the crowd to him with his disciples, he said to them, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 35 For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel's will save it.”
A true Christian treasures Jesus above everything and everyone else and gladly leaves everything behind to follow Christ
Matthew 19:29 “And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life.”
Matthew 13:44 “The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”
A true Christian loves God with all his heart, mind, soul, and strength and loves his neighbor because God commands him to
Matthew 22:37-40 “37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”"
A true Christian suffers just like Jesus suffers, but his faith endures until the end and until death brings him safely home to Jesus
Matthew 24:9-13 “9 Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name's sake. 10 And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. 11 And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. 12 And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. 13 But the one who endures to the end will be saved.”
A true Christian has been born again and has been changed and transformed both internally and externally
John 3:3 “Jesus answered him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.””
There are many who claim to follow and believe in Jesus, but are truthfully as fake as all the knockoffs I saw in that flea market in Mexico. I don’t mean for this list to be a list to condemn you, but a list to see if your name is truly written in the book of life. A doctor who tells his patients that they are healthy when they are actually dying is not a good or moral doctor at all.
Some believe they are genuinely Christian because they got baptized at a certain point in their life, because they prayed a prayer or “felt God” during a praise night or retreat back when they were a teenager, because they attend church or bible study regularly, because outwardly they appear more righteous or holy than their neighbor, because their parents were Christian and their whole family is Christian, or were faithfully following Jesus at some point in their life but no longer follow Christ presently. I tell you, none of these things are evidence of genuine faith in Jesus.
Paul urged the church in Corinth to “Examine yourselves, to see whether you are in the faith. Test yourselves. Or do you not realize this about yourselves, that Jesus Christ is in you?—unless indeed you fail to meet the test!” (2 Corinthians 13:5)
Do you pass Jesus’ test?
I had been in church my entire life and realized my freshmen summer of high school that I wasn’t a Christian at all according to Jesus. I grew up in a Korean church where going to church and being a Christian was just something you did culturally and socially. The first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have a problem in the first place. For you, that may mean admitting that you’re not a genuine Christian. That summer, I repented of my sin, trusted Jesus as my Savior and Lord, and actually began to walk with Him. Jesus invites you to do the same.