Thursday, April 24, 2014

A Life Worth Living

Living for Christ is a forward movement kind of life. Too often we come to Christ and after making that decision do nothing with it. Yeah, maybe we attend Church and might even get involved but isn't it more than that? Isn't a relationship with Christ just that, a RELATIONSHIP. Jesus invites us to do more than just receive Him as Savior but also as Lord. Lord to me goes back to the medieval times where there was a Lord and everyone served him. But God isn't a Lord like you may have experienced back then. God is a loving God and a VERY patient loving God at that. We often project on to God our definition of love and then think how could God ever love me or forgive me. There lies the problem, our definition of love and patience is far different from His. God is WAY better at love and patience than we are. Because He is better at it than we are His Lordship in our lives is amazingly beneficial to us. Everything He commands us to do or not do is for out benefit and not just because He said so. The fact is God wants us to live an amazingly fulfilling life and He knows how that is best done. Not only that but the God who created the universe with just the power of His words wants to spend time with us. He wants to know us and wants us to know Him.

So in living a life that moves forward. That accomplishes what we just mentioned lets look at
2 Corinthians 5:14-17  

14Either way, Christ’s love controls us. Since we believe that Christ died for all, we also believe that we have all died to our old life. 15He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them.
16So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! 17This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

Christ died for all and we then die to our old life. When we come to Christ we are admitting that we are sinners in need of a savior to avoid being punished for our sins. Jesus took the punishment so we don't have to, we just have to receive and believe in Jesus Christ. That recognition is what is being noted here. Christ died for us and we then die to our old life. Our way of doing life changes. Jesus died so when we receive Him we no longer live for ourselves. Think about it, how different would your life look if you stopped living for yourself and began living for others? I think you could spend a lot of time on just that idea and how it would change the world around you. I don't mean living for others for "recognition", but simply no longer for your benefit. It is this idea that we miss just about everyday of our lives. It is a poisonous idea floating around in the Church world today that we want to do what is convenient and works for me. We don't want to take the time to do what serves others. 

What we need to understand then is that Jesus wants what is best for us. Problem sometimes being that we don't give up our old life and when life with Jesus isn't working out we cannot figure out why. The why is here, Jesus died so we give up and are free from our old way of life. We need to find ourselves living for Jesus and not us. When we do this we have put ourselves under the command of the person who loves us more than anyone possibly could. Someone who will care for us and keep us on track if we will just obey.

There are those that see Jesus from an outsiders perspective. That perspective of the world that religion is a crutch for only the weak goes away and you realize that it a relationship with Jesus is so much more than mans religion.

So get it... When put your faith in Jesus you become a new person. You can walk in it and know it to be true. It's not a about a feeling, it's a reality. When Jesus says you are a new person then you can believe it! Begin walking in that new life that Jesus has for you. Put away the old way of life and begin experiencing a new and better way of life. Trade in the old broken solutions to life's problems for the answer Jesus has been waiting to give you.

No comments: