Spiritual Growth: Are You a Christ Follower or a Cultural Christian?

If you asked a thousand people to describe what a Christian was, you’d likely get quite a range of answers. Some would say that a Christian is someone who identifies as a follower of Christ. Some might say that it is someone who is born-again or saved.

They might define the label as loving, generous, or kind. Unfortunately, many others might make an opposite assertion. They might describe a Christian as politically charged, judgmental, hypocritical, or narrow-minded.

That range is sobering. If the term “Christian” can mean almost anything in the culture, the label itself becomes rather confusing because a word loses clarity and power. If the term has an unclear definition, it loses its significance. That can affect more than just communication and culture. It can influence your self-image, your relationships, and your testimony.

Vocabulary Matters

Language is vitally important to communication and relationships. Words also reveal belief systems and shape identity. They also determine behavior and are integral to how you define yourself.

When you call yourself a Christian, it shouldn’t be used in a cultural way to express that you grew up in a church or that you identify with the Christian community. When you say that you’re a Christian, you are, in fact, claiming agreement with Christ and attaching His name to your identity. The word Christian historically meant “little Christ” or “belonging to Christ.” That is not casual language and is quite a profound thought.

If you call yourself a Christian but live in a way that contradicts the character of Christ, with whom you profess allegiance and alliance, you are creating ambiguity. This ambiguity can cause great destruction and confusion for you and for others.

The Cost of Ambiguous Christianity

I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were either one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. – Revelation 3:15-16, NIV

This is strong and uncomfortable language, but notice the context and what Jesus is addressing. He’s not confronting atheism or rebuking open rebellion in this verse. He’s speaking to people who carry His name and live just close enough to claim the label, but distant enough to resist transformation by Him. Lukewarm faith is when you want the identity of a Christian without the surrender of Christ Himself.

When your words and your character don’t match, you create both internal and external confusion. Obviously, this ambiguity can be spiritually damaging. But that damage can also spread out into relational and psychological issues.

Internal Confusion

When you don’t live in a way that honors the name you carry, it can create what therapists call cognitive dissonance. It’s the mental and emotional stress that happens when your stated beliefs and your lived behavior don’t match.

This disconnect is quite subtle at first, but can manifest into a true spiritual crisis. At first, you might feel a small conviction after you say something unkind or when your actions contradict your professed faith. That discomfort is actually healthy. It might be the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and it’s often a sign that your internal value system is trying to bring you back to a place of integrity.

If you repeatedly ignore this conviction, your mind begins to protect you from it. Most humans don’t revel in discomfort. Do you experience chronic defensiveness or get angry when your lifestyle is questioned? Or perhaps you find that your moral conventions are selective rather than universal. Do you feel like you’re on stage when you’re around other believers?

When you experience cognitive dissonance, you have three possible reactions.

• Change your behavior.
• Change your belief.
• Justify the inconsistency.

Changing your behavior requires humility and surrender. You must first notice your faults and then have the self-restraint and strength to make the necessary changes.

Changing your belief system requires deconstructing what you’ve come to believe is true. That isn’t always an easy task because belief systems often develop gradually over a lifetime. Changing that belief can be difficult. To complicate the process further, you will also have to reconstruct it in a way that reflects your new belief, which takes effort.

Justifying comes easier. You begin to rationalize that your anger was righteous or that your prejudice is nothing more than discernment. You redefine cruelty as being honest, and you spiritualize control until you convince yourself that it’s something less damning, even something noble like leadership.

This is how lukewarm faith develops. You gradually grow comfortable with saying one thing and living an entirely different life. And when you get comfortable with this lukewarm lifestyle, it not only affects your spiritual life, but can eventually lead to chronic irritability, defensiveness, and anxiety, which affects you physically, mentally, emotionally, and relationally.

External Confusion

Your internal confusion usually doesn’t stay internal. When your words and behaviors don’t match, people start to notice, even when you feel like your struggles are well concealed. While this contradiction can be unpleasant for everyone you’re close to, it is especially damaging to those who are spiritually vulnerable or those who are trying to understand the concept of salvation.

If you speak about grace, but practice harshness, or preach humility, but embody superiority, it speaks more about your heart than any words ever could. If you proclaim love but can justify racism or sexism, you aren’t representing the transformative power of Christ.

People form their understanding of God relationally before they form their theological beliefs. And when you’re a representative of Christ in their life, it lays a huge responsibility on your shoulders.

Jesus speaks directly to this dynamic in Matthew: “‘If anyone causes one of these little ones – those who believe in me – to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and be drowned in the depths of the sea.’” (Matthew 18:6, NIV)

This passage is a warning that the most significant damage to the kingdom doesn’t usually come from the outside, but from the inside. When Jesus mentions “these little ones,” he isn’t just referring to children, but to anyone with a new or vulnerable faith. When a cultural Christian or someone who carries the label of Christianity but hasn’t undergone the internal transformation causes a seeker to stumble, they are obscuring the nature of God.

The Millstone

This warning is specifically for those who already claim Christ. If you already believe or claim to believe, your life becomes an arrow that others use to find their way to Christ.

This isn’t to say that perfection is required once you claim Christianity. You’re a fallen, fallible person who is going to make mistakes. Intent, transparency, and honesty are what count. The millstone is not for struggling believers, but for pretending believers who refuse to change.

If you’re claiming Christianity, you don’t have to be perfect; that would be impossible. Instead, be intentional to live a life that leads others into a relationship with Christ through your actions and reactions instead of into the thicket of political tribalism, moral superiority, or lukewarm hypocrisy.

Therapy

We often think spiritual growth and mental health are two completely different concepts, but the truth is that they are deeply intertwined. If you’re experiencing cognitive dissonance or exhaustion from pretending to be one person on Sunday and living another life the rest of the week, therapy can help.

Therapy can give you an objective place where you can confront contradictions and examine your own justifications. When you see your inconsistencies, the ones you have often justified, come into the light, you can turn them over to God.

Therapy can help you move from being a cultural Christian, who often relies on performance, to an authentic believer full of joy and peace. While this transition isn’t always easy and might require humility and surrender to God, it can be utterly life-changing.

Contact me to learn how Christian counseling can help you redefine your faith and live the life you long to live.