Question: Who said this?
Christianity isn't a list of rules to follow or a strict theological code. It is primarily about a relationship with a God whose character means that he seeks a relationship with you. The Bible is full to the brim of accounts of God seeking a relationship with people who fail, and are then rescued from that failure by the God who loves them despite the fact that they hardly love him back.
The chasm that costs human beings a relationship with God is caused by our need to be forgiven. Indeed, Jesus makes it really clear that our greatest need is not food, water, shelter, human relationships, health - he states that our greatest need is to be forgiven so the relationship between us and God can be restored (Matthew 9 v 1-8 sums it up nicely). So here's the rub: if that's the case then we must have done something that needs forgiving - and most of us don't like being told that. But faith in Jesus Christ isn't an ointment to sooth you, it is abrasive and challenging and a threat to your ego. Christians should not believe ourselves to be especially good and worthy people. Quite the opposite - what marks out a Christian is that they've understood that we need God
more than anything else, we need to be forgiven and have met in Jesus Christ someone who can provide that forgiveness (because he is both fully God and fully human and he died to pay for every wrong thing you ever did). Our experience is that Jesus will accept us however much we fall short of our own and others' expectations, and will give us the power to change.
Answer: Tim Farron MP (a few months ago).
He's absolutely right.
I don't mention this to make any political point whatsoever. Indeed, if you read on in the article, he explicitly says that sharing his faith does not require you to share his policies. "But it does shape what I get passionate about."
... and so it should. Well done, Tim: Stay on that track.
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