Recently, a Christian friend shared with me, “I don’t talk to people about my relationship with Jesus, but let them see how I live.”

And while I agree with Penn’s (of Penn & Teller fame) recent questioning of Christians who don’t “proselytize,” or specifically Penn’s statement of how much you hate somebody to believe there path is leading to eternal non-existence without your God, my friend makes a good point.

If Christians are living like Jesus, from the inside out truly set free, our lifestyles will reflect such a dramatic contrast to cultural norms that our friends, neighbors, coworkers, and family will see overwhelming external evidence leading them to actually accuse you of being a Christian….

A great example of this is in Acts 11:26, “The disciples were called Christians first at Antioch.” This is the first example of the word Christian being used. In Antioch, the people who followed Christ were first called Christians…. It was a derogatory term meant to imply being just like Jesus. They were called Christians based on the external evidence of living so counter to surrounding culture, and instead following the lifestyle of Jesus.

People who were first called Christians we’re so loving, so forgiving, so grace giving, so generous, so merciful, so surrendered to the Lord’s truth, so committed to people who shared the Christian lifestyle, and just as loving to people who didn’t that it led people around them to realize these people, “Christians” we’re exactly like the Jesus they had seen firsthand or heard about.

Reflecting on this begs many questions to be answered. You may call yourself a Christian, but what do other people call you? And in our culture, both secular and Christian, we have gotten confused about that we are supposed to live in a way that we will be accused of being Christians. Not accused of being church goers. Not accused of being religious. Not accused of being good moral people. Not accused of being political. And defintely not accused of being smug ***holes who act as if we died on the Cross for our own sins.

If you call yourself a Christian, is their consistent overwhelming external evidence which backs it up?

Is it so obvious that people actually accuse you of being just like Jesus (read this last question to yourself slowly for dramatic effect)?