Keys to a Blessed Life

After coming to know Christ as my Savior I found myself wanting to do more for Him. I wanted to be more for Him. I wanted to learn more of Him. I wanted to live for Him, really live for Him but my problem was that I kept going back to my old habits. I would claim such scripture as, Rom. 12:1-2 which says, “I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” I would commit myself to the Lord with all my heart and I would decide to live a holy life. I would tell myself that I was His child now and that I had the power needed to combat all the evil that would come my way. I would do “OK” for a week or so and then I would catch myself slowly drifting back to my old ways. I was reading the Bible fairly consistently, but as for prayer? Well, I’m a social person. If I don’t hear an audible voice talking back to me, I sort of, get bored! Yes, I am weird, and I view things from a weirdo’s perspective.

Time and time again, I would follow the same pattern. Time and time again, failure was inevitable. Hey, doesn’t the Bible teach us that when we do things our own way that all we do is in vain? You see, I was trying to please God under my own power. As I found out, even a life in Christ, can be very challenging and very discouraging if we don’t fully realize the freedom and the grace we have in Jesus. I kept trying to please God my way, and I kept growing further and further away from the Lord. In my frustration with my efforts I turned to different pastor friends to find out what to do. The problem with asking someone at a church what to do to live successfully for the Lord is that most will give you some kind of a list and will never ask if you have asked God first.

Most churches, and let me add, well meaning churches, will give you a list of do’s and don’ts to live the most successful life in Christ. Like I said, they are well meaning churches. They are not trying to mislead anyone, but a list of things to do and not to do, can be misleading. Sort of like the Pharisees’, rules and regulations for living a holy life for God. Rules and regulations were not, and are not freedom; they are chains that bind you. No one could live by the law. If they could have, then Jesus would not have had to been our sacrifice. When you live by a list of rules it’s almost like binding a phylactery on your fore head that is so big that it blinds you and you cannot see where you are going or what you are doing. Sort of ironic, isn’t it? These are the same chains that are pushed on us by the churches of today. Jesus said, “He came to make us free, and free indeed” John 8:36. When you use the word “indeed”, it’s like adding three exclamation points. It’s almost like He was saying, “Hello, this is important, are you listening to me?”

The freedom we have in Christ is a freedom that is really hard for most Christians to comprehend. Please, don’t take me wrong, I’m not saying that we have a freedom to live any way we want to. Actually, yes, we do!

As a natural born man or woman, we were created by God. He did not create us as robots which are controlled by the creator. We can live any way we want to. We can do or say anything we desire. Even as a born again believer in Jesus Christ, we still have the freedom to do as we please. But this same freedom also gives us the privilege to suffer the consequences of all of our wrong doings.

Even though we have this kind of freedom in Jesus, if we love Him, we would not dare to exercise that freedom. Yes, we will fall from time to time. But when we do, His love compels us to get back up, ask forgiveness, turn from the sin, and go on forward living for Him. I have heard it said that we should not try to live for Him. What we should do is allow Him to live thru us. Let’s think about that for a moment. Could it be possible for us to do nothing except allow Him to live thru us? I think not! We do have a part in every aspect of our living for the Lord. There are multiple places in the Bible where we are instructed to make the second move. What about the first move, you might ask? Well the first move was made when God reached out to us thru Calvary. A really good way to explain what the second move is found in Rom. 12:2. The Bible says “do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.” Think about it, how long were you alive before you accepted Jesus as your Savior? Myself, I was alive and kicking for over fifty years before I really came to know Him. That means I had fifty plus years to go the wrong direction. So you see, it took me that long to really mess things up. What is really cool is that He fixed it in the twinkling of His eye. Even though my life was turned around when I accepted Jesus, I was still entrenched in my old habits. So to change my old world honoring habits to a life lived for Christ I need to learn of Him. I needed to fall in love with Him. To do this we have to start learning of Him and doing as His Word shows.