I wonder if our identity as Christians comes too easily, too quickly, too soon.

I wonder if the Christian life has become nothing more than an identification with the world’s values, the world’s rewards, the world’s standards.

The older I get, the more convinced I become that living the Christian life will get me into trouble instead of out of it. Being a Christian will have me offending people instead of appeasing them. Following Christ will take me places where most of the world says I can’t or shouldn’t go. When Jesus calls us it isn’t to a life of ease or material rewards. It is to the cross. It is to a life of service and sacrifice. It is to a life with Jesus.

"He was a good man in the worst sense of the word," said my friend Sam Clemens.

It is an accurate depiction of too many of us who claim to be Christian. Sometimes being good and following Christ are diametrically opposed.

It was the good people of Jerusalem who decided to nail Jesus to the cross. It was the good people of Germany who pretended not to see the box cars and smell the burning flesh. It is the good people like me, and maybe you, who find it so easy to follow the rules and so hard to follow the Christ.