Sometimes the headiest, most intelligent people are the ones that get being Christian the most muddled.

So what is being Christian?

Why all these denominations?

Who decides who is and who is not Christian?

How are there Christian bands and movies and books and schools?

Truth is, only people can be Christian. To be a Christian is to be Christ-like (I know we’ve all heard this a hundred times, but bear with me). Jesus was a man - yes, he was God too, but He was very much a man. He got hungry and sleepy and weepy and upset just like men do. Anyways, we also know that Jesus was not a book or a band or a school or artwork or a movie, etc. His words did become recorded in the Bible, but He was not a book. More author than book. So to say that a book is Christian is silly. A book cannot be lost or saved or Godly - only people can.

Like Abraham, in our faith journey we have to leave our old self, and follow God wherever He will guide.

But I was not now satisfied with my experience. I felt that I needed not only pardon, but cleansing; not only justification, but sanctification. I now had such views of my natural depravity as I never had before; I saw myself such a sinner that I loathed and abhorred myself. But I did not now look for death to set me free. Nay, I could not desire death, as I had done, while in this state. I began to look to Jesus, not to death, as my entire and complete sanctification, as my full Saviour from sin. But, oh! what struggles now ensued! I was endeavoring to overcome sin, to sanctify myself; before I came to Jesus.

I began now to preach a higher Christian experience. My preaching of Christian morality had always been up to the New Testament standard, so that many thought me unnecessarily strict in my views on this point; but I now saw that the failure on my own part to exemplify that standard, and my failure to lead my people to live up to it, was owing to the want of a corresponding experience in my own heart, and, consequently, the lack of clear teaching of such an experience to them.

As the result of this preaching, a young lady, a member of the church, became convicted of her need of a better experience, and came to tell the exercises of her soul to me, and ask for direction. I could not direct her. She was as far advanced as I was. We were both under conviction.

“By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.” – Hebrews 10:10

         Without Jesus Christ we would be forever lost.  We sing a song in church (I Will Arise and Go to Jesus) that says “I was lost and doomed to ruin, not one ray of light could see, till the Word of God so precious, pointed out the way to me.”  We all come into this world with sin reigning within our hearts.  The innocence of youth masks it, but in time the fruit of that carnal (sinful) seed that is within bears out and we find ourselves with a two part problem.  The sins we commit and the sin that causes us to commit it.  Thankfully, God is not without mercy, and he made a way that we might be free.  He gave His Son to be the complete sacrifice for all sin.  Jesus paid the price and bought/brought salvation to mankind, and we now have access to this salvation through Jesus Christ.  We can be made holy, we can be sanctified. 

The following is taken from "The Origin and Doctrine of Christ's Sanctified Holy Church", by George Miller.

 We believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God and that within its pages lies the Hope of all the world.

We believe that Adam was the first person on the face of the earth and his wife. Eve, was made a help meet for him.

We believe that Adam and Eve were deceived by the devil or the serpent and were driven from the presence of God. Because of Adam's transgression, God placed a curse on the human race.  Since that day all men are born sinners by nature - the nature of our Father Adam.

Romans 5:12

Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: