MAKING A HOME—OR, WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A CHRISTIAN

A man once set out to make a home. How did he go to work? In the first place, he had a skilful architect draw a plan for a house. In a few weeks the plan was completed, nicely laid out on sheets of paper. Every detail of the house was drawn, so that one could look at the plan and tell just where every door would be and every window, and just how the house would look when it was finished. But that plan did not make the home, did it?

Then the builder was set to work. Many carts carried great loads of stone for the foundation, of brick for the chimneys, of boards and plaster and everything else that goes to make up a house. After a while all these materials for the house were gathered together, heaped up on the ground. And yet the man did not have a home, did he?

Then the masons came and built the foundation, and the carpenters came and put together the boards to make the house. The plaster was spread on the walls, the blinds were hung at the windows, the doors were placed on their hinges, and at last the house stood there all but finished. And yet the man had not made a home.

Then came the painters, and covered the boards with pretty colors, and frescoed the walls inside. Then came great loads of furniture, and the carpets were laid down, and the rooms became very comfortable and beautiful. But for all that, you would not call that house a home, would you?

What was lacking after all this you can readily guess. The house with all its furniture could not be called a home until it had people in it. Very soon a happy family came—grandfather and grandmother, the young married folks and the little children, and then indeed a home was made.

Now all this is to show you what it means to become a Christian. A Christian is just the home in which Christ lives, as Christ himself has said. A plan does not make a man or a woman a Christian any more than the plan for that home made the home. If you merely expect sometime to be a Christian, or if you are merely planning just when you will become a Christian, or how you will become one, don’t think that plan has made you a Christian. Not a bit of it.

Nor does the power to become a Christian make one a Christian, any more than the piles of boards and stone and brick heaped up in the yard made a home. Any man or woman or any boy or girl has all the powers necessary to make a splendid Christian, but until something else happens he is not a Christian, no matter how many powers he has.

Neither do forms and ceremonies make one a Christian, any more than the house was a home after the walls were up and the boards had taken the form of a house. Simply joining a church, or going through any other kind of form, will not make you a Christian.

Nor will deeds make one a Christian, any more than the furniture and the wall-paper made that house a home. You can keep on forever doing the things you see Christians do and saying the things you hear Christians say, but those things by themselves will never make you a Christian.

No; the thing that is necessary to make you the home in which Christ lives is just the thing that was necessary to make a home out of that house. You must have Christ come to live in your life, to be part of your soul. After that has happened, then your plans and your powers, the words you say and the deeds you do, will all be filled with Christ. But without Christ, all these things put together will never make you a Christian. What you need, then, is to know more about him, and come to love him and obey him with all your heart and soul.