Is Christian your default status? To put it another way, do you identify as a “Christian” simply because other options such as Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist don’t apply?

There’s a significant difference between self-identifying as a Christian—even if you attend church—and actually being a Christian. As the adage says, “Going to church doesn’t make you a Christian any more than sitting in a garage makes you a car.”

So how do you determine if you’re a default Christian? Becoming a Christian involves more than walking an aisle or saying a formulaic prayer. It’s more than attending church Christmas and Easter, or even every Sunday.

• Being a Christian means that you take God at His Word.
• That you understand sin separates you from a holy God.
• Knowing you can do nothing to pay for that sin yourself.
• That you understand God paid for your sin by sacrificing His Son, Jesus—fully God and fully man—in your place.
• That His substitutionary death paid the full price to restore you to your heavenly Father.
• And that He has given you the indwelling Presence of His Holy Spirit to give you eternal life.

Being a Christian means your life is not your own. You were bought with a price and your desire is to live the rest of your life in gratitude to God for what He has done.

But what about your worldview?

Christian Worldview

A worldview is the filter through which we evaluate the world around us. It influences our beliefs and our choices. And especially in our western culture today, the Christian worldview is under intentional attack.

We hear it all the time:

• God? Belief in a deity is a crutch used by superstitious people.
• The Bible? A relic for ignorant people left over from ancient times.
• Creation? A mythical account believed by uneducated people.
• Jesus? A person who may or may not have actually lived, but at best was only a man.

Problem is, these incessant attacks on the Christian faith begin to influence us in ways we may not even realize. And the result can easily compromise our Christian worldview.

For example, Christians often buy into the lie that it’s okay to believe “that Bible stuff” as long as we keep it to ourselves. Or that you can still be a Christian without believing in the Genesis account of creation. And believing in Jesus is fine if you understand that His teachings are what restored us to God, not His death and resurrection.

But without a biblical Christian worldview, our faith is gutted.

• Rejecting the Genesis account of creation empowers humanity to avoid accountability to their Creator.
• Accepting that Jesus was just a good, human teacher dismisses the justice of a holy God whose righteousness requires a payment for sin by One who is sinless.
• Believing the lie of evolution enables us to ignore the killing of unborn babies in the name of the right to privacy because they’re just “clumps of cells.”
• And keeping the good news of salvation to ourselves requires us to stand idly by, watching lost people race down the highway to damnation, their choices cementing eternal separation from the One who offers love and life.

All too often, Christians sit on the proverbial fence, intimidated about publicly espousing a biblical worldview, yet knowing the worldview of our culture fails to honor God. But, in reality, there is no fence. Jesus said, “He who is not with Me is against Me; and he who does not gather with Me scatters” (Matthew 12:30 NASB).

What is your worldview?