I was asked this question about a month ago and I have been thinking abut it ever since. It's interesting because it can be so different. Here is my attempt to answer:
A Christian looks like me who grew up in a Christian home and yet strayed for many years, mired myself in a life of sin and then came broken and dirty to the foot of the cross. It also looks like my friend Jennie who has lived an amazing life of integrity, who has always known her self worth came from Christ Himself and was able to present herself pure to her husband on her wedding night. Or like Rich who did not grow up in a Christian home and yet had a God given knowledge in his soul that he there had to be more to life. A Christian also looks like my dear friend Ernie who died several years ago at the age of 35. He was plagued with an addiction to alcohol and although he tried to "kick the habit" was never able to do it.
A Christian can be in a nice suit with perfect hair singing hymns every Sunday or can be tattooed and pierced and rocking out to heavy metal. She can be calm and demure or loud and obnoxious. He can be a shrewed business man or an out of work construction worker. He can have a foul mouth or be an eloquent speaker. She can have it all together or be a complete disorganized mess.
The bottom line is being a Christian has nothing to do with who we are as a person. It isn't how we dress or how we were raised. It isn't what sins we commit and which demons we a conquered. Being a Christian has very little to do with me and everything to do with CHRIST! I have to do one thing to be a Christian: SURRENDER. He does the rest.
When it all comes down to it, working out my salvation doesn't mean I have to keep trying to be a better person, it means I have to keep surrendering more and more of my old sinful self to God who He can get rid of it and replace it with the new creation that He has allowed me to become through His grace and the gift of His Son.
Is a Christian perfect? NO - Christ is perfect!
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