(Read part 1 here.)

Increasingly over the past few years, I’ve been asking myself: what is the point of living a Christian life? What is my purpose?

The Baltimore Catechism answers “Why did God make you?” with these words:

“God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment was, He answered:

“ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the great and foremost commandment. The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:37-40)

I’m also reminded of a quote from St. Gregory of Nyssa:

“We must contemplate the beauty of the Father without ceasing and adorn our own souls accordingly.”

There was a time when I thought my understanding of a certain theological system was so important, so extremely important, that it was perfectly justifiable for me to behave like a rude brat in defending it. The sad truth is that I wasn’t defending a theological system — and certainly not Christianity — as much as I was defending myself and my ideas. My anger and argumentativeness was sin, and it was born out of utter selfishness and pride. It had nothing to do with truth, or with God, and it certainly had nothing to do with love.

I didn’t want anyone to treat me the way I was treating them.

At the time, however, I was drawn to other angry people — at least as long as they agreed with me. Then we would rile each other up and assure each other that we were “standing for truth”, that we were “exposing lies and heresies”, and that we were oh so very righteous.

Of course we didn’t convince anyone but ourselves.

Mahatma Gandhi is reported to have said, “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” He could have been talking about me.

So who do I allow to influence my understanding of Christianity today? It is those Christians whose words and deeds demonstrate to me that they know, love, and serve God. It is those whose love for God and for others is obvious and worth emulating. It is those who “contemplate the beauty of the Father” to such an extent that even I can see the beauty that shines forth from their souls.

Given all my faults and sins, I desperately need people like that in my life — people who are continually being transformed more and more into the image of Christ, people who love well, people who already exemplify what I hope to become.

Anything else isn’t really Christianity.