# MARKS OF THE TRUE CHRISTIAN

Many will proclaim to be followers of Christ and I am sure that they are sincere when they are saying this. Romans 12: 9-21 is clear on how Christian should act. “Let love be genuine. Abhor what is evil; hold fast to what is good. Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not be slothful in zeal, be fervent in spirit, serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in tribulation, be constant in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints and seek to show hospitality. Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse them. Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep. Live in harmony with one another. Do not be haughty, but associate with the lowly. Never be wise in your own sight. Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceable with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written ‘Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord’. To the contrary ‘if your enemy is hungry feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head’. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good. There are also other marks that one can’t see on the surface. These are the ones that remain after one has gone through the troubles in this world. A true Christian will be persecuted. No if’s and’s or but’s about it. These persecutions can come from wherever, whenever and from whomever. Sometimes they might stop for a while and then start and never end until it is our time to leave this life. Some will just come and go and when we think that we have gone through the worst in reality there comes another batch of them worse than the first. These storms won’t come with an instruction booklet included that will tell us how to navigate through them. Some might even come when we are almost down to our last drop of strength. We are guaranteed that we won’t have to go through them alone but sometimes it seems that we are all alone in an ocean surrounded by sharks that haven’t eaten in a week. Some marks can be seen on the surface of our bodies. One can see them in the wrinkles on our faces. In the bags underneath our eyes as we spend some nights praying to our Lord that seems to have gone on an extended vacation. Some marks will show in the smile that we barely show others even though we have gone through a rough day. Some marks can’t be seen but can be felt by those that associate with us. Seeing that regardless of our situations we still want to be of help to others. We emit something that they just can’t put their hands on but they can certainly feel it. Some call it peace and some call it the spirit of the Lord flowing through our souls and touching those that come in contact with us. A true Christian will not try to show others their marks. They won’t tell them how Christ like they are. They won’t brag about what they have had to go through and how they were able to come out of it in one piece because of their own doing. A true Christian will only give praise to One. A true Christian will not want to brag but humble themselves by telling others how they were able to handle certain things with the help of others and especially their Lord. The marks of a Christian are not shown by the clothes that they wear or the style of hair that they have or the house they live in or the car they drive or the things that they have accomplished in this life. Most of the time the mark of a Christian is a contrite spirit and a humble heart and a head bowed low as to show that they are waiting for this life to end so that they can finally be held in the Lord’s arms.