True Believer By Your Actions

This is something I've been thinking a lot about lately. We seem to have dumbed down the Gospel into "if I say I'm a Christian I am".

The other day I was reading Romans 2, and I started to look at it from a different light. Basically Paul is saying to the Jewish people they are not Jews because they had an operation performed on them. It's how they live that tells everyone (including God) they are His people. There are verses like these throughout the chapter:

Romans 2:13 ~ Hearing the law does not make people right with God. It is those who obey the law who will be right with Him. (NCV)

Romans 2:29a ~ A person is a Jew only if he is a Jew inside. (NCV)

What if we started believing this and living like this as Christians? As ones who say we know the true God personally, that we have met and talk with the Son of God? What if instead of worrying about telling everyone what we believe and making sure people hear what is in our heads, instead we started living what we believe and let people make their own judgements? I bet if we were living right the people watching wouldn't have a hard time guessing who God really is.

And I know, I'm not perfect either. I'm not preaching that we all should be perfect, if not, we aren't really God's. Grace is part of that. But I think we need to be making an effort. If we are truly doing our best to live for God, people will see it, those around us will sense it, and then another verse in Romans may come true.

Romans 1:12 ~ I mean that I want us to help each other with the faith we have. Your faith will help me, and my faith will help you. (NCV).

T