Christian Living

A Simple Definition of Christian

1 John 2:2-6, 9-11, 15-17  records, “I write this, dear children, to guide you out of sin. But

if anyone does sin, we have a Priest-Friend in the presence of the Father: Jesus Christ, righteous Jesus. When He served as a sacrifice for our sins, He solved the sin problem for good—not only ours, but the whole world’s. Here’s how we can be sure that we know God in the right way: Keep His commandments. If someone claims, “I know Him well!” but doesn’t keep His commandments, he’s obviously a liar. His life doesn’t match his words. But the one who keeps God’s word is the person in whom we see God’s mature love. This is the only way to be sure we’re in God. Anyone who claims to be intimate with God ought to live the same kind of life Jesus lived. Anyone who claims to live in God’s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark. It’s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God’s light and doesn’t block the light from others. But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn’t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness. Don’t love the world’s ways. Don’t love the world’s goods. Love of the world squeezes out love for the Father. Practically everything that goes on in the world—wanting your own way, wanting everything for yourself, wanting to appear important—has nothing to do with the Father. It just isolates you from him. The world and all its wanting, wanting, wanting is on the way out—but whoever does what God wants is set for eternity.” MSG

 

Summing up these verses as a Christian definition: obey Jesus by living like Jesus who displayed God’s love by loving people and not the world. Simple not easy. Our constant wanting is hard, whether it is wanting pleasure, power, or possessions. People are hard, they irritate and aggravate us. Obedience is hard, dying to self, making others more important than myself, serving constantly, giving generously, forgiving unconditionally, overwhelming!

 

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December 15, 2021
Christian Living / evangelism / heaven / Judgement

Finishing Well As A Christian

Hebrews 12.1-3 asks, Do you see what this means—all these pioneers who blazed the

 

way, all these veterans cheering us on? It means we’d better get on with it. Strip down, start running—and never quit! No extra spiritual fat, no parasitic sins. Keep your eyes on Jesus, who both began and finished this race we’re in. Study how he did it. Because he never lost sight of where he was headed—that exhilarating finish in and with God—he could put up with anything along the way: Cross, shame, whatever. And now he’s there, in the place of honor, right alongside God. When you find yourselves flagging in your faith, go over that story again, item by item, that long litany of hostility he plowed through. That will shoot adrenaline into your souls! MSG

 

The key to finishing well in this Christian life is to stay focused on the eternal life to come. They key to finishing well in this Christian life is not to focus on comfort, ease, and accomplishment in this world but to focus on receiving God’s praise, approval, and reward in the next world. Difficulty from serving God, persecution from men for acknowledging Jesus, suffering for conviction of God’s truth, are badges of honor, are means for making us like Jesus, and are proof that we are in Him and He is in us.

 

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December 2, 2021
Christian Living / obedience

God is Looking for Adventurers

2 Kings 18.5-6 observes, Hezekiah put his whole trust in the God of Israel. There was no king quite like him, either before or after. He held fast to God—never loosened his grip—and obeyed to the letter everything God had commanded Moses. And God, for His part, held fast to him through all his adventures. MSG

 

We should seek to be like Hezekiah: Holding fast to God, never loosening our grip on God, obedient to the letter of everything Jesus commands us. Then we will experience God holding us fast through all our adventures. What adventures are we taking for God? What are we doing that needs faith, trust, and earnest prayer?

 

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November 17, 2021
Christian Living / obedience

How Do We Know What Is Right And Wrong?

1 Corinthians 5.1-2 records, I also received a report of scandalous sex within your church family, a kind that wouldn’t be tolerated even outside the church: One of your men is sleeping with his stepmother. And you’re so above it all that it doesn’t even faze you! Shouldn’t this break your hearts? Shouldn’t it bring you to your knees in tears? Shouldn’t this person and his conduct be confronted and dealt with? MSG

 

Why was this activity wrong? Where did the Lord Jesus condemn such actions? We have to turn to Paul’s Bible, what we call the Old Testament, to find this behavior of a man sleeping with his stepmother immoral. But we are under the New Covenant, why should this apply to us?

 

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September 8, 2021
Christian Living

Do You Really Know God?

Luke 13.23-27 asks, Master, will only a few be saved?” He said, “Whether few or many is none of your business. Put your mind on your life with God. The way to life—to God!—is vigorous and requires your total attention. A lot of you are going to assume that you’ll sit down to God’s salvation banquet just because you’ve been hanging around the neighborhood all your lives. Well, one day you’re going to be banging on the door, wanting to get in, but you’ll find the door locked and the Master saying, ‘Sorry, you’re not on My guest list.’ “You’ll protest, ‘But we’ve known You all our lives!’ only to be interrupted with His abrupt, ‘Your kind of knowing can hardly be called knowing. You don’t know the first thing about Me. MSG

God is given the best possible question for telling us His heart, His future plans for humanity, His purpose for His work on earth. Will only a few be saved? Almost the entire church would answer, NO! Most of the church and the rest of humanity would answer, everyone will be saved because God is love. Yet that is NOT how God answers the question. (more…)

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August 18, 2021
Christian Living / Judgement / obedience

What It Means To Believe In Jesus

Acts 24.24-26 records, “A few days later Felix and his wife, Drusilla, who was Jewish, sent for Paul and listened to him talk about a life of believing in Jesus Christ. As Paul continued to insist on right relations with God and his people, about a life of moral discipline and the coming Judgment, Felix felt things getting a little too close for comfort and dismissed him. “That’s enough for today. I’ll call you back when it’s convenient.” At the same time he was secretly hoping that Paul would offer him a substantial bribe. These conversations were repeated frequently.” MSG

 

In his sharing of the gospel, the Apostle Paul tells us a few key elements of what it means to believe in Jesus. First, is the insisting upon a right relationship with God and His people. A right relationship with God must come through Jesus the Savior. Reconciliation to God comes by faith in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. Apart from faith in Him, there is no peace with God. (more…)

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August 9, 2021