No Difference

For those who don’t already know it, I’m an author. A long time ago I wrote what’s called “fan fiction,” but that’s before I knew there was such a thing. I was pretty ignorant about the whole writing thing. I’d like to think I’ve learned a lot since then.

One of the things I wrote was a Star Trek novel, and I had Spock saying something like, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference.” It seemed a very Spockish kind of truism.

For instance, does it really matter that your car is light blue? Does it drive any differently than if it were dark green? Perhaps it’s easier to cool in the summer, so your air conditioner doesn’t work as hard, but seriously, if you were going to buy a car and it only came in light blue, what difference does it make? Your Sonata is the same regardless of the color.

Let’s say you’ve given your life to Christ. Do you make a difference? Are you the same as you were before? “A difference that makes no difference is no difference,” as I had Spock say. The Bible has another way of putting it: Faith without works is dead.

So if you claim to be a Christian, but you don’t feed the hungry, you should ask yourself if you really know Jesus or are a liar. Even atheists feed people at various soup kitchens and the like. At least they don’t claim to be Christian.

How do you tell them apart? A “Christian” who doesn’t follow Jesus is just as worthless as an atheist who does. Neither glorify God. The Bible tells us, however, how to know who really serves Christ.

Churches all have regular attendees who don’t really serve God. There could be any number of reasons those people are there, and they shouldn’t be condemned for it. We’re all hypocrites of one sort or another. It’s not our job to weed them out, and who knows? Maybe in a year or ten they’ll come to a real life-changing decision to follow Him.

On Judgement Day, though, there’ll be a whole lot of people who are going to be surprised when God looks at them and says, “A difference that makes no difference is no difference.”

I mean, “I never knew you.”