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"Christians aren't always nice people," stated a friend of mine.
This was incredibly troubling to her. Her reasoning was valid.
"If Christianity is true," she said, "why wouldn’t it follow that
Christians are naturally nicer than non-Christians?"

I appreciate this question on more levels than one. It awakens
me to the reality of my own Christian testimony. And where I
do not contend with judging a religion by its abuse, I do suspect
it is a sincere question that has crossed many minds. C.S. Lewis
found it a question on the hearts of quite a few people who cor-
responded with him. He always responded that the word "naturally"
is where our attention needed to be focused. His point is well-stated.
It is natural, in the sense that it is reasonable, to expect that one's
accepting Christianity should lead to a changed person. (We know
that Christ himself expects results from our commitment to him.)
But it is not natural at all, in the sense that it is effortless or
instinctive, to defy human nature. In fact, it is altogether
unreasonable to expect that becoming a Christian obliterates
all imperfections, bad attitudes, and wayward cravings.

Shortly after the film "A Beautiful Mind" won an Oscar for Best Picture,
John F. Nash, the exceptional mind behind that true story, was asked
what it was like to live daily with Schizophrenia. As a Nobel Prize
winner he was an extraordinarily brilliant mind, and yet his was a
mind that suffered daily with paranoid delusions. Dr. Nash carefully
noted that imperative to overcoming the tormenting visions of his
disease was the emphasis he placed continually on putting his
"mind on a diet."

The imagery of his words is perhaps one that illustrates the condition
of the Christian. The Christian, like the non-Christian, is subject to
the
cravings of the flesh, bombarded with tempting visions, and delusional
feelings. We don't always feel like being nice, or moral for that
matter.
The Christian is not perfect, and shouldn’t claim to be. It is Christ we
claim who is perfect. And we struggle to live well by that vision, by
the
truth of who we are in light of him. With Christ as our vision of hope,
we learn to deny the cravings of the flesh; we learn to put our minds on
diets.

The great preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon once powerfully explained
this life-giving, life-sustaining hope by which the Christian lives.
"The Lord
knows right well that you cannot change your own heart," wrote Spurgeon.
"It would be a very wonderful thing if one could stand at the foot of the
Niagara Falls, and speak a word which should make the river Niagara begin
to run up stream… Nothing but the power of God could achieve that
marvel:
but that would be more than a fit parallel to what would take place if
the
course of your nature were altogether reversed. All things are possible
with God. He can reverse the direction of your desires and the current
of
your life, and instead of going downward from God, He can make your
whole being tend upward toward God. That is, in fact, what the Lord has
promised to do." (1)

That is a compelling promise to live by! As Oswald Chambers beautifully
noted, the only way to respond to that heavenly vision is "to give our
utmost for His highest—our best for His glory." The Christian is a work
in progress, called to obedience, clinging to the hope of Christ. Jill
Carattini

(1) Charles Spurgeon, All of Grace, Ch. 6 "Concerning Deliverance from
Sinning."

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