You and Elijah have a lot in common

I love it when I teach a familiar passage and a whole new thought is born. I’ve taught the book of James several times over the years and I KNOW I’ve read this verse many times. 

Last week, I saw it for the first time in a new way. 

I was getting ready to head out to teach when a song started playing that said what I wanted to teach my ladies that morning. One thought led to another and then this blog post was born. 

I think all of the rhetoric in our world is beginning to work itself into the self-images of a lot of Christians. It seems like too many of God’s children are feeling pushed into a position of silence. Many Christians feel like the world is winning the culture wars and it’s best just to steer clear and stay quiet. I’m in ministry for crying out loud, and I’ve started to feel that way on occasion! 

Then I taught James 5:17 and it provided an important reminder. 

The truth of James 5:17

James wrote his letter to people who had been early Jewish Christians in Jerusalem. After the stoning of Stephen, they were forced to flee the city. James wrote his letter to those people, hoping to help them live strong Christian lives in foreign, probably Gentile, cultures. 

Imagine fleeing America to take up residence in a Muslim neighborhood of Belgium. That is a little like what it was like for these Jerusalem Christian refugees. 

James closed his letter by reminding them who they were and whose they were. His words are just as true for Christians today, but we need to hear the verse as it would have meant to those first-century refugees. James told them, “Elijah was a human being, even as we are” (James 5:17 NIV).  

James told the early Christians something you and I need to remember today. Think of five other biblical heroes in Scripture and hear James say, “They were just human beings like you.

Elijah

James reminded those refugees that Elijah had “prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops” (James 5:17–18 NIV). 

Elijah built the altar and called down fire from heaven, proving to all the prophets of Baal that his God was the true God. Elijah is literally considered one of the most powerful, unique prophets from the Old Testament, and he was considered by the first-century Jewish people as their most esteemed prophet. 

James told these early Jewish Christians, “Elijah was a human being, even as we are.” 

James might tell you: 

  • Paul was a missionary, just like you.
  • Peter was a pastor, just like you.
  • Lydia was a businesswoman, just like you.
  • Luke was a reporter, just like you.
  • John was a friend, just like you.
  • Mary and Martha cared about Jesus, just like you.
  • Lazarus was a man, just like you.
  • Barnabas was an encourager, just like you.

If you are like me, it is easy to see biblical heroes in a different light than we see other people. James would say, “Don’t do that.” 

They were men and women, saved by Christ, and filled with the exact same Spirit that indwells you. 

All of them were human beings, just like you. 

When you look in the mirror, whom do you see?

Last week I asked my readers and the ladies in the Bible study, “Do you underestimate and undervalue your potential in Christ? 

In my experience, most Christians are hindered the most by not understanding “who they are in Christ Jesus.” 

They tend to think someone else can answer those questions better than they can. They think they could never do this or would never be chosen for that. 

The truth is that the most likely person to be effective in ministry is exactly the person who knows they are not able. Why? Because that is the person who will be most likely to lean on and trust the Holy Spirit to do the work through them

Allowing the Holy Spirit to lead isn’t just a good idea for ministry; it is the difference between human ability and God’s. 

Elijah was just like you, yet he called fire from heaven and revealed the Most High God to everyone watching.  

Have you underestimated your ministry potential? 

Have you limited the Most High God’s calling in your life? 

The Most High God

Ben Fuller has a great song that has become very popular. The song is called “Who I Am,” and I’d love for you to listen and think about the lyrics. 

His song is the same message James wanted his Christian refugees to understand when he told them Elijah was just a human being. But Elijah was a human being who understood what God could do through his prayers, through his words, and through his life if he would live committed to his Most High God. 

After you listen to “Who I Am,” go and find a mirror. 

I hope you see the truth of who you are in your reflection. 

Head into your day with a high, holy, and humble self-image, borne of pure gratitude and filled with God’s grace.  

We are a blessed people

Let’s live and do ministry with the knowledge of who we are, in Christ Jesus.

You have been identified

Have you ever had a conversation you wish you could do over?

This weekend we were out walking when I heard a phrase I was unprepared to respond to. I needed some time to think it through. Her words felt wrong, but technically, they weren’t. 

A woman was here from out of town because her son and his wife both work and their nanny had been exposed to Covid. She had been called into town at the last minute to help. She was pushing her grandchild in a stroller the morning we met. I was out for a walk and I think she might have been lost because she was quick to fall in step. 

What I didn’t know, and still don’t, was: How lost was she? 

She used a phrase to describe herself that I had never heard before, and I didn’t know how to process her words spiritually.  

What did she mean?

We were talking about a church in our neighborhood that her children might want to use for their daycare needs someday. The conversation gradually led to the subject of denominations, churches, and faith. She asked what we did for a living and that led to a conversation about our ministry. 

Then she said it, the phrase that I wasn’t prepared for: “Well, I identify as a Christian but I’ve traveled the world and met a lot of people and I don’t think religion should be divisive.”  

I had never heard someone say, “I identify as a Christian.” 

My instincts told me that if she were asked to list her faith, she would check the box marked “Christian.” But, has she actually chosen Christ to be her Lord? Was she telling me she was a Christian, or did she simply choose to identify as a Christian? 

It didn’t help that we had reached the spot for her to turn and go home.  

The conversation stayed with me all day, and now I’m typing a blog post about it! Did I miss an appointment to share the gospel? Or, was I speaking with someone who was a Christian already but just commenting on some of the rancor and divisions among people of faith? 

I honestly do not know.

What does it mean to identify as a Christian?

That is a question that carries cultural challenges today. We live in a time when a man can identify as a woman and win every one of his competitions as a swimmer. We live in a time when a woman can identify as a man. I’ve come up with a dozen things I wish I had thought to say to the woman I met. I wish I had thought to say, “What do you mean when you say, ‘I identify as a Christian?’” 

What would you want to say to her today? 

We live in a culture that stresses we are free to choose who we want to be. We are free to live however we choose. We are who we say we are, not who others say we are. But our personal freedoms can sometimes come at the expense of actual truth. 

The man who is competing as a woman never medaled until he chose to identify as a woman. His freedom to choose is costing his competitors their freedom to have a fair competition. The fact he identifies as a woman doesn’t mean he has become a woman physically. Our culture says his truth is the truth. Our culture permits surgeries, medications, and wardrobe changes to gain the appearance a person chooses. The awards ceremony after the swim meet doesn’t support his chosen truth as truthful. 

Are we Christians because we chose to be?

That’s the question that caused my confusion. I would have quickly answered the question yes before my conversation with that woman. I’ve taught and written about the importance of choosing Christ as our Lord and Savior. But, I wouldn’t teach that a person can simply identify as a Christian today. That phrase likely doesn’t mean what it once meant. What is the difference? What would I say if I could have that conversation today? 

We aren’t saved merely because we make a choice. We are saved because God made the choice of salvation possible. I’m not going to heaven just because I want to. I’m going to heaven because God made salvation possible through his Son. I don’t simply identify as a Christian; God recreated my life in Christ Jesus. Recall 2 Corinthians 5:17: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.”  

That’s why Jesus told Nicodemus, “Unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3). You and I are not going to spend eternity in heaven just because we want that to be true. We have eternal life because God allowed us to become eternal creations in Christ. That isn’t true just because we want it to be true. It is true because God promised. 

The thing I am praying for today is a second chance to talk to the woman I met, or hopefully someone else will help her to be certain about her salvation if needed. We can’t just identify as a Christian, the way the world defines that concept today. We must be completely “born again.” Colossians 3:3 says, “For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.” We didn’t add Christ to our former identity; we have a completely new life that is eternal. 

We don’t just identify as Christians; we have become children of God. 

Why does our identity matter?

Why have we always heard preachers and teachers say, “You must die to self”? 

Because, if our “old self” didn’t die, our soul won’t live eternally. That’s what Paul meant when he wrote, “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Nobody who was crucified lived. Paul knew what it meant to have his life completely transformed by Christ. He had been born again. 

For me, one of the most disturbing passages in the entire Bible is found in Matthew 7. Jesus concluded his Sermon on the Mount with a very clear statement about the New Covenant promise. He told those listening, “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. 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?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness’” (Matthew 7:21–23). 

I think Jesus was warning his listeners about the heart of the New Covenant. Salvation wasn’t about people making choices to obey laws and customs or identify with a certain culture of belief. Salvation was about choosing to die to our old self and be born again into a new life. The only choice people have is the choice Jesus provided. Those who choose to “die to self” can choose to live “in Christ.” Those are the people who do “the will of the Father who is in heaven.” 

The person winning swim meets now hasn’t become a woman simply because he wanted to identify as a woman. He is still who he was born to be. Our identity as a Christian isn’t because we simply choose to identify in that way. Christians are born again to be children of God. We have new names

The reason we need to understand our new identity is that in our current culture it will be easy for someone to misunderstand the difference. Jesus will say, “I never knew you.” It does matter how Christians identify themselves going forward. It will be especially important with our cultural trends that we are able to help others understand God’s truth about how to identify as well.  

God’s truth must be our truth because it matters eternally.