Do you believe that Jesus Christ died on the cross for you sins?

Have you prayed this prayer?

“Heavenly Father, I believe that Jesus died on the cross for me and rose again. I give you my life. I want Jesus Christ to come into my life and into my heart. Amen”

Then guess what, you are a Christian. The Vine’s expository dictionary defines "Christian," as a word formed after the Roman style, signifying an adherent of Jesus, and was first applied to such by the Gentiles and is found in Acts 11:26; 26:28; 1 Pet. 4:16.

This is the basics of Christianity, the very link that ties us all together. We have ALL sinned and have ALL fallen short, but by the grace of God we were redeemed by the blood of Jesus. You would think that you would find all of us celebrating together the beauty that is Christ and our victory that the lord bought for us. Instead you will find that we’ve become one of our own worst enemies and our weapon is persecution. Second Timothy 3:12 states very plainly “Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution”, yes as a follower of Christ you will see more and more persecution. However, this persecution is supposed to come from the devil, not from each other.

There are many denominations, faiths, doctrines and ministries that teach Jesus Christ is our lord and savior. They encourage people to give their lives back to god, to turn away from sin and develop their relationships with the lord. They each endeavor to spread evangelism and further God’s word in the world. Yet, they find themselves caught up in the petty, small differences between each other. Maybe they don’t see eye to eye on baptism, the Holy Spirit or whether or not God wants you to prosper. Instead of uniting and supporting one another they tear each other down. When they should be sharing a much needed word from the lord, they are flinging careless insults at each other.

It is no wonder Christian’s have such a negative reputation among non-believers. How can we say that we are followers of Christ when we can’t even abide by a simple commandment to “love thy neighbor as thyself” (Matt 22:39)? We should be such an oasis of God’s love that people who don’t know Jesus Christ can’t wait to develop that relationship because they see his love reflected in our lives and want to be a part of it. Sadly many Christian just display the same strife seen in the rest of the world, the only difference is that theirs has a religious twist on it.

The word clearly states in Second Timothy 2:14 “Remind [the people] of these facts and [solemnly] charge them in the presence of the Lord to avoid petty controversy over words, which does no good but upsets and undermines the faith of the hearers” (Amplified Bible). This battle of words has got to stop and the focus on sharing the message of Jesus Christ to the world needs to return.