When it is hard to tell a Christian from a man of the world, something is wrong with the Christian. Too often in our day the line between the two is indistinct.
A high standard for believers was set forth in one of the famous letters of Samuel Rutherford. Writing to his friend, John Clark, he said, “Ye may put a difference betwixt you and reprobates, if ye have these marks:
1. If ye prize Christ and His truth so as ye will sell all and by Him and suffer for it.
2. If the love of Christ keeps you back from sinning more than the law or fear of Hell.
3. If ye be humble and deny your own will, wit, credit, ease, honour, and the world, and the vanity and glory of it.
4. Your profession must not be barren and void of good works.
5. Ye must in all things aim at God’s honor; ye must eat, drink, sleep, buy, sell, sit, stand, speak, pray, read, and hear the Word with a heart purpose that God may be honoured.
6. Ye must shew yourself an enemy to sin and reprove the works of darkness, such as drunkenness, swearing, and lying, albeit the company should hate you for so doing.
7. Keep in mind the truth of God, that ye heard me teach, and have nothing to do with the corruptions and new guises entered into the house of God.
8. Make conscience of your calling, in covenants, in buying and selling.
9. Acquaint yourself with daily praying; commit all your ways and actions to God, by prayer, supplication, and thanksgiving; and count not much of being mocked, for Christ Jesus was mocked before you.”
If this standard seems too high, it may be because we have fallen into the easygoing ways of the world; nor is it unscriptural, for the New Testament passages can be found to sustain all the nine points. They are unattainable in our own strength, but not in His, for “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). Moreover, they are quite in accord with Paul’s admonition to “…do all to the glory of God”(I Corinthians 10:31).