It happened during the first few weeks in a new parish. At this church, my goal was to visit every family to begin getting acquainted. But it’s easy to stop with just small talk. “Is that Aunt Minnie’s picture up there on the mantle?” “Yes.”

So I came up with a gimmick: one question, the same question, asked at each home. “What is your definition of a Christian?” And I kept a careful record of each response.

• “A Christian is one who lives by the golden rule.”
• “A Christian is honest.”
• “A Christian is someone who is kind and loving.”
• “A Christian is a good neighbor.”

I heard many different answers, but one common denominator. Every answer was a behavioral answer. The name of Christ was conspicuously absent.

You can read reports of newsmen interviewing the man on the street, asking similar questions. The pattern of answers is the same.

“A Christian does this, and does that. A Christian doesn’t do the other thing.” How often do you hear the response, “A Christian is one who knows and loves Christ?”

What is Christianity? Is it primarily based on behavior? Or is it primarily based on relationship?

Here is the bottom line for understanding and experiencing salvation by faith in Christ. Christianity is a matter of knowing Christ. And the behavior which distinguishes the Christian from the non-Christian comes as a result of the faith relationship with Jesus—it is never the cause.

Let’s rephrase this thesis just a bit. An apple tree bears apples because it is an apple tree, never in order to be one. Jesus made the same comparison: “Every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit.” Matthew 7:17, 18.

If you’re interested in good fruit, the starting place is a good tree. Your task, then, is to water the tree, fertilize it perhaps, and allow the sun and rain and wind to do their work. There is no need to try hard to produce fruit. If you have a healthy tree, the fruit will come as a matter of course.

That’s how it is in the Christian life. The one who tries to live the Christian life by working on behavior is on a dead-end street. Christ’s Object Lessons puts it this way:

It is by the renewing of the heart that the grace of God works to transform the life. No mere external change is sufficient to bring us into harmony with God. There are many who try to reform by correcting this or that bad habit, and they hope in this way to become Christians, but they are beginning in the wrong place. Our first work is with the heart. - Christ’s Object Lessons, Page 97

No matter how upright your life may be, no matter how many good deeds you may perform, no matter how religious you may appear, you are not a genuine Christian until you know Jesus Christ personally, one-to-one. Doing what is right will never make you a Christian. It will only make you moral.

The early church focused so on the Lord Jesus Christ that He was the theme of their thought and conversation. “Christ did this, and Christ said that.” Finally someone said, “Let’s just call them Christians.”

What would you be called if you were named according to the thing you speak and think of the most? Are you a good person? Or are you really a Christian? Think about it!