Waking Up to Grace
Waking Up to Grace is a Bible-centered podcast for anyone who is weary of religious performance and ready to rest confidently in Christ.
Hosted by Lenny, each episode brings honest conversations and a fresh look at Scripture to questions about grace, faith, the New Covenant, identity in Christ, forgiveness, assurance, the church, and eternal life. The goal is not to give you another religious checklist, but to help you see the finished work of Jesus more clearly and reconsider long-held traditions in the light of Scripture.
Whether you are questioning what you have been taught, recovering from legalism, or simply longing to know Christ more deeply, join us as we wake up to grace—one conversation at a time.
Find companion Bible studies and more at WakingUpToGrace.com
Waking Up to Grace
What Does a Christian Look Like? | Episode 102
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What does a Christian look like? Is there a visible standard that proves someone is a genuine believer, or have we confused Christian identity with religious performance?
In this conversation, we examine the impossible picture of the “perfect Christian,” the pride and fear produced by comparison, and the difference between asking what we must do next and understanding who we are now in Christ. Grace gives us a settled standing with our Father, and the Christian life grows from that identity instead of striving to earn it.
Read the companion reflection and join the conversation:
https://wakinguptograce.com/what-does-a-christian-look-like/
If someone came to you and said: I've never heard of this Christianity thing. What does a Christian look like? What would you say?
Speaker 3Well, that's really simple. They have holes in the knees of their genes because they're praying 24-7.
SpeakerAre you talking about the Phantom Christian? I I actually have this page marked in my Bob George classic Christianity book that I thought was clever. Always alert to hurting people in need. Head filled with scripture memorization and sermons. Prays seven hours a day. Listens to people's problems before speaking. Able to raise hands and praise for hours. Always smiling. Teaches seven Bible studies. Alarm set for 4 a.m. for devotions. Top executive in his company. Pictures of children he supports in Africa. Heart filled with love for his Proverbs 31 wife and perfect kids. Always prepared to give his 10% and more. Bookmark for being deacon for 10 years. Able to sit for long hours in pews. Tracks to pass out to everyone he talks to, but is ready to go to church when the doors open. Bob George created that phantom Christian because in our minds as we go to church, I think most of us are thinking that way. Like, am I the perfect Christian? What does the perfect Christian look like? I want to be the perfect Christian. But how do you actually put that into words? What is a good Christian look like?
Speaker 2I like that question.
SpeakerIt's on the inside. I agree. But why do we have doctrines that lordship doctrine, for instance, they'll tell you flat out, if you don't behave like a Christian, it's probably because you're not a Christian. And then where we went to church, if you don't behave like a Christian, you're out of fellowship with God. And you gotta get back in. What are we supposed to think? Are we even a Christian at all if we're not behaving like a model Christian? And what are the rules? Where do they come up with rules for this stuff? If you believe in lordship doctrine, what's the list of rules that makes you an official believer? Somebody that I knew that went to those churches said you had to have the MacArthur Commentary Bible. So is that the truth? If you carry the MacArthur Study Bible, then you're a good Christian.
Speaker 1Anybody could carry a MacArthur Bible. I mean, I agree with Suzanne. It's on the inside. The scripture says, you know, all we have to do is believe on the power of Jesus' name. Yeah, that's it. I think we get caught up in, okay, what is it supposed to look like? I mean, what is it supposed to look like? I mean, Jesus said they would know we were Christians by our love and um by our actions. But even people who aren't Christians do good things. Yeah.
Speaker 4Exactly.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 1I don't know that there's a clear answer for that question.
SpeakerIt's between yourself and God, Suzanne said if you couldn't hear one line that I came up with is Christians want what God wants inside. But that doesn't mean we're always thinking that way or even achieving that, because even that, if we make that a rule, we have to want what God wants, you're toast. But when we want what God wants, we feel like ourselves, don't we? We feel like, wow, this is this is my identity here. This is me living the Christian life. What does God want? If we ask that question constantly, I think we're on a pretty good track.
Speaker 5So what you're saying is that the question really shouldn't be what does a Christian look like? It should be what's my standing? Yeah. In that light, as I look at other people knowing what my standing is, my desire is that they have the same standing, but it's not called upon me to define who they are. Many times we talk to people who don't even think they're believers and they are. You know? It's sort of funny, but it's sort of unique in that whole thing because they don't know what the true definition of a believer is, so they've held to what the church says and they've really missed it. Instead of living in a life of liberty and grace, they're living in a life of condemnation and insecurity and fear. That's a shame. My perspective today is that that question isn't relevant in in my life because my relationship with my father is more important than how I view someone else.
SpeakerAnd I think that's extremely important. Yeah. Because when we start going down that road in our mind, it can lead to two outcomes. We can become uh too confident in our own behavior over others when we compare, overly confident, falsely confident, or we become afraid. I'm not good enough. And maybe it's a kind of a combination of both. And I think that's what double talk does. It puts us in a double mindset. We become double-minded, and one moment we feel like we're living the Christian life, and the next minute we're not good enough.
Speaker 3And we start judging other people, thinking, well, that person can't be a Christian because they're not doing this, this, this.
SpeakerAnd double-minded thoughts just lead to exhaustion, depression, fear, stress, worry. There's nothing spiritually productive about a double-minded belief system. And I think that's probably the most important thing that we try to address in our studies on grace. We want people to come away with a single mind, a grace mind, not a double mind.
Speaker 3And to Jack's point, I think it scares people away from Christianity if they think they have to do all these things. They believe, but they don't even consider themselves a Christian because, oh, how can I be? Because I know I still tell little white lies and I you know I do this or that, so I I must not be, even though I believe I'm missing something.
SpeakerYou just reminded me of Ray Comfort. You ever told a lie? Have you ever taken something that wasn't yours? Even something little?
Speaker 5Still the people They're professional sin diggers.
unknownYeah.
Speaker 5It's pretty entertaining. Yeah.
Speaker 3That can scare people away. Yeah. And that's a shame.
Speaker 5Yeah. Well, the Grace perspective in that whole thing would say, well, first of all, the Galatians first wrestled with this whole thing because Paul had gone in and set things in order and the yes but came in. You know, the that but that's a big but. Yeah. But yes but the yes butt came in and they said, Hey, you guys are doing really nicely here. It's very simple. Everything is very simple, and that's a good start for you. But now now we've got to do some things, you know, to help you mature. Now we've got some things that you need to do to prove what you're living in. And see, that's what's happened to the church today, the same thing, is that someone comes to Jesus, somebody shares the simple gospel with them, and they sense the presence of God in their life and they realize the release that's happened, and they understand the fact that they're now eternal beings and they have a relationship with their father. Then the question, what next, comes in. What do I do next? And it's not what you do next, it's who you are next. That should be the question. When someone gets saved, who are you now? And let's live a life of who we are now instead of what do we do now. Because if we live in who we are now, our actions will follow that. That's the thing that has soured individuals against religion. And I'm sorta glad that happened. Quite frankly. I'm sorta glad that people are like, Oh man, I don't want to go in that church. That's sad to say, but it's true because the true gospel is something that draws. No one comes to God unless he calls them, draws them. And he draws them by the fact that everything that we have is ultimately from him in grace, is rewarding and and loving. So there's no reason why we wouldn't be drawn to that. You know, when someone's set that aside or someone is put off by the religious structure, that's that's a good thing because inside they know that that's not the real thing. That's something that's trying to shape them into what does a Christian look like?
SpeakerYeah, you hit that on the head. It's so true that so much of the error in the church just stems from that one place.
Speaker 3I never heard somebody say this before, and it's on the lines of about churches and how they can divide and turn people off and not give the right idea, all these different denominations. I had uh a friend of mine came out who uh trims our horses' hooves, and I'm talking to her, and she's been dropping little hints. I kind of sus suspected she would say she's a Christian, but I I don't know if she really understands the gospel, but she was saying something, so I said, I said, You're a Christian, right? And she said, Well, she's like, I don't like to use uh titles. She was even afraid of the title Christian. When people ask me that, I just say that I'm just me. I'm just me. This is just who I am. And then she went on to talk about a customer she had who's Catholic that was always pushing her into, oh, you have to do this and you have to do that, and and so she just kind of saw even Christianity as a title and as a denomination. Just the word Christian turned her off. She didn't even want to say she was that.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3I thought, wow, that's what are we doing today that we're making people not even want to say they're a Christian? That's pretty bad.
Speaker 5Yeah. Great point, Melissa. That is.
Speaker 1Well, that's because these days, like somebody else said, it's kind of has a negative connotation to it.
Speaker 4Yeah.
Speaker 3It just kind of circling back to what we already said. There probably are a lot of people that don't realize that they're a Christian. They just don't want to say it.
SpeakerProbably people that haven't gone to church for years that would love to be part of Waking Up to Grace.
Speaker 5That's nice. That's a good point. On one of my podcasts, I told a story about a group of people that got together at a some kind of meeting. I forget what it was now, but Yes, you did. At the end of that meeting. You remember that?
Speaker 2It's excellent.
Speaker 5I forget what the name of it is even is now, but at any rate, they got together.
SpeakerThat's a good title. That was a good title. I can't remember it either now. It was so good, I forgot.
Speaker 5Oh, it's been a while for that one. But anyway, the the thing, the point is that the people got together and they realized within their time together that they had what it took. The meetings continued and it became a fellowship, and individuals expressed the fact that there was something so unique about that time together. And my point in all this is that from that podcast episode, I was pushing the point that when someone experiences true grace and fellowship, uh, there's no sour taste in your mouth. There's no uh sense of being ostracized or having to fit into the group. Because when we are as new creatures, as new creations, when we come together, we fit. That's what Paul said. You guys fit. Um one of my one of my pet peeves thing I'm sharing is uh I belong to a small assembly for a time. Very traditionalistic, conservative, independent fundamental church. And to see that grow in the way that it did was uh disheartening, to say the least, because of the lines that were drawn as it grew actually separated more people than drew them in. That was an interesting thing because you want the church to grow, but you set up so many rules and so many regulations that it actually chases people away.