What's Changed?

I was having a discussion with the awesome staff at Renown Church  about Abraham and how he was recognised as someone loved by God because of his incredible wealth.

This is a common pattern in the Old Testament - God blesses His servants with incredible wealth, and people marvel and the wealth and praise God. In this case, the answer to the question: “what is different about you because of God?” is “wealth.” The pattern is “come and see.”

But the New Testament brings a different pattern - it’s more of a “go and tell” and we see this in Jesus’ final command of Matthew 28:19-20.

This posed a question in my mind though; if someone asked “what is different about you because of God?” how would we answer? We discussed many possible answers, but I couldn’t find one, single thing that defined a Christian as different from others.

For example, one may say that Christians are able to show joy through hardships. But many people who do not believe in God do this. One may say that Christians go out and purposefully help people. But many who do not believe do this. One may say that Christians love unconditionally, or love the poor, or stand up for what is right or or or…but many who don’t believe also do these things.

This troubled me; there must be something different about Christians?! And then it hit me. It’s not that there is something different about a Christian.

It’s that everything is different about a Christian.