Spoiler alert: I’m a Christian. I know. It’s not like my blog title gave that away or anything. I’m no saint, but I do take my faith pretty seriously.

I’ve noticed a shift in what people perceive it takes to be a Christian.

On one side, I’ve noticed that, although Christians are not a minority, we’re not really embraced by the world either. But on the other side, I’ve noticed that being a Christian is now a loose term. It’s like when you tell your mom you’re studying, but you’re just saying that to make her happy. Your textbook is open, but you couldn’t really tell her what was in it. You just want to look the part to seem like you’re doing the right thing. Similarly, we want to do the bare minimum to be a Christian and be as close to the world as we can without going “too far.” For some reason, it’s now okay to live in unrepentant sin as long as you’re still quoting scriptures on Instagram.

Identifying as a Christian can’t be summed into 140 characters. It will never be trendy. The Bible isn’t some bill passed by government that can be revised as the world evolves.

The Word says that we should be in the world, but not of it. However, I’ve noticed that many Christians are obsessed with the world. Even if we’ve been “delivered,” we still happily reminisce about the “good ol’ days” and shrug when we slip up again. It’s like we don’t get convicted anymore. We’ve set our own standards that can easily be broken and adjusted based on how we feel. We mold our beliefs around our imperfections instead of shifting our focus to Jesus because of our imperfections.

The truth is that we all have our shortcomings, including me. But we don’t have to accept our shortcomings as permanent or even innate, instead we should try to pull ourselves as far away from these things as possible and push ourselves closer to all things holy.The fact that we are imperfect creatures should compel us even more to make righteousness our standard.

Because as much as we try, we’ll never be the one’s fully in control. If our standards don’t align with God’s,  we’re not redefining our religion, but instead living a life that deems Him unnecessary.

In summary, there’s no old and new Christianity.You can’t finesse your lukewarm faith and rename it “your truth’ or the “new Christianity.” There’s one God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. In our attempt to be make our beliefs fit the world’s, we’ve lost sight of this never-changing truth. Life with God is so much better than anything else this world has to offer, but first, you have to fully surrender to Him.