Category: Christian Living

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Christian Living

It Is So Easy To Forget Jesus

I believe these things:

  • A believer prays, and heaven responds;
  • A sinner repents, and the angels rejoice;
  • A mission succeeds, and Satan falls like lightning;
  • A believer rebels, and the Holy Spirit is grieved.
    What we humans do here decisively affects the cosmos.

    I believe these things, and yet somehow I keep “forgetting” them.

  • I forget that my prayers matter to God.
  • I forget that I am helping my neighbors to their eternal destinations.
  • I forget that the choices I make today bring delight—or grief—to the Lord of the Universe.

    …The reality of this material universe tends to overwhelm my faith in a spiritual universe that is permeating through it all. I look into the blank blue sky and see nothing.

    By ascending, Jesus took the risk of being forgotten.
    –Philip Yancey

    It is so easy to get so sidetracked by all of the things of this life – our goals, our worries, our schedules, our wants, and our needs – that we forget our need for Jesus. Fight against allowing the physical, material aspects of life crowd out the spiritual disciplines you need to remain connected to and growing in Him.

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    Christian Living

    Other People May Suffer For Your Christianity

    There’s one more sacrifice I should probably mention: If you decide to embrace the mystery of living a life worthy of the gospel of Christ, you aren’t the only one who may suffer. People you love may suffer too. Would you be willing to embrace obscurity if it meant disappointing, inconveniencing, or upsetting others? What if it meant they had to give up some of their comforts, dreams, or expectations? Could you follow Christ’s model of humility, service and disregard for reputation then?
    –Anonymous, Embracing Obscurity

    Our saying “yes” to Christ means saying no to other things, and this affects our families and our friends. I pray i am willing to say yes to Christ even though it will affect those around me, because his effects will be a better benefit to all others than me holding onto my dreams and plans (even if they can’t see it at the time).

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    Christian Living Quotes

    What Running Into Trouble Tells You About Your Life

    Many people throughout the ages have always considered that running into trouble meant that God was mad at them. Therefore if someone is dealing with sickness or injury or loss or any other difficulty, many people have always felt that these things must be consequences of God’s displeasure with the person. But that is not always the case.

    Dr. Packer’s quote below reminds us that certainly the trouble we face could be God’s discipline, and therefore we should think through and pray through the issue to make sure that we consider whether we have disobeyed God in some way to receive His discipline. But he reminds us that every sign of trouble is not a sign of God’s displeasure with us:

    Trouble should always be treated as a call to consider one’s ways. But trouble is not necessarily a sign of being off track at all; for as the Bible declares in general that “many are the afflictions of the righteous” (Psalm 34:19), so it teaches in particular that following God’s guidance regularly leads to upsets and distresses which one would otherwise have escaped. Examples abound. God guided Israel by means of a fiery and cloudy pillar that went before them (Exodus 13:21-22); yet the way by which he led them involved the nerve-shredding cliffhanger of the Red Sea crossing…. And Jesus’ disciples were twice caught by night in bad weather on the Sea of Galilee (Mark 4:37; 6:48), and both times the reason why they were there was the command of Jesus himself (see Mark 4:35; 6:45).
    –J. I. Packer

    There are many times that we will face difficulty because we live in a fallen world that has many troubles (including disease, pain, injury, death, etc.). And there are some times that we might face difficulty because of God’s discipline. But there are many other times that we will face difficulty even when we are doing God’s will, as the directions He takes us may be to build our faith so that we will be better witnesses for Him. And there are also times when we are doing His will that the enemy will desire to thwart our efforts and engage us in spiritual warfare (as He did with Paul’s “thorn in the flesh”).

    It can be hard to discern which of these you are experiencing, but please don’t credit every problem you encounter with God’s discipline. In fact, it may be that you are right in the center of His will, right where He wants you to be. And He loves you and He is walking with you through each and every difficulty. And do know this, even when we do experience God’s discipline, it is always out of love to bring you back to a place where He can use you again.

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    Christian Living

    Dutiful and Obedient Love

    A Christian man is the most free lord of all, and subject to none;
    a Christian man is the most dutiful servant of all, and subject to every one.

    Although these statements appear contradictory, yet, when they are found to agree together, they will be highly serviceable to my purpose. They are both the statements of Paul himself, who says: “Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all,” and: “Owe no man anything, but to love one another.”

    Now love is by its own nature dutiful and obedient to the beloved object. Thus even Christ, though Lord of all things, was yet made of a woman; made under the law; at once both free and a servant; at once both in the form of God and in the form of a servant.

    –Martin Luther

    Though you are a person who is free, have you placed yourself into a love relationship with God and others, choosing voluntary service to them?

    You have told your spouse that you love her. Would she say that you serve her well?
    You hug your children and tell them that you love them. Would they say that you serve them well?
    You tell God that you love Him. Would He say that you serve Him well?

    God told you that He loved you. Then He died on the cross for you. Jesus served you well with dutiful and obedient love! It is now my calling and your calling to go do the same for Him and for others.

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    Christian Living

    How You are Slowly Becoming Either a Saint or a Brute

    Every one of us find ourselves in the middle of the current of this River of Life.
    And it is naturally working to sweep us in a direction – pushing us along with a powerful force.
    If we decide to tread water, we find that we don’t stay in the same place, we are still being pushed further downstream. Unless we decide to engage in the hard work of swimming against the current, we find that we are constantly being pushed along with so many others by the river. And it is certainly easier to “go with the flow” and let the water carry us along. But when we get to the destination that the river is carrying us to, will we be satisfied with where we end up?

    We are familiar with the thought that our bodies are like machines, needing the right routine of food, rest and exercise if they are to run efficiently, and liable, if filled up with the wrong fuel (alcohol, drugs, poison) to lose their power of healthy functioning and ultimately to “seize up” entirely in physical death.

    What we are, perhaps, slower to grasp is that God wishes us to think of our souls in a similar way. As rational persons, we were made to bear God’s moral image — that is, our souls were made to “run” on the practice of worship, law-keeping, truthfulness, honesty, discipline, self-control, and service to God and our fellows. If we abandon these practices, not only do we incur guilt before God; we also progressively destroy our own souls. Conscience atrophies; the sense of shame dries up; one’s capacity for truthfulness, loyalty, and honesty is eaten away; one’s character disintegrates. One not only becomes desperately miserable; one is steadily being dehumanized. This is one aspect of spiritual death. Richard Baxter was right to formulate the alternatives as either: “A Saint — or a Brute”… that, ultimately, is the only choice, and everyone, sooner or later, consciously or unconsciously opts for one or the other.
    (J. I. Packer in Knowing God)

    We are each becoming either a Saint or a Brute due to our choice of swimming against the current or letting the natural course of things sweep us along. It is easier to not engage in that list of “law-keeping, truthfulness, honesty, discipline, self-control, and service.” Those things require hard work. But I don’t want my character to disintegrate as I let my conscience atrophy and my sense of shame dry up while floating along with everyone else. It is easier to “go with the flow.” But Christ calls each of us to be a saint – one of His holy people set apart to live for Him. That will require us to swim against the current and to look different than most everyone else. But getting to the right destination at the end of this life is worth it.